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The Armenian Dream Is Over !

2011-03-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

Lawsuit Against U.S. Federal Reserve Seeks Armenian Gold Looted by Turkey By Harut Sassounian
Comments by Sukru Server Aya In Blue
The Glendale-based nonprofit Center for Armenian Remembrance (CAR) sued the U.S. Federal Reserve on March 4, seeking information on its acquisition of a large amount of Armenian gold looted by the Ottoman government in 1915.
CAR filed the lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The gold, originally valued at 5 million Turkish gold liras ($22 million dollars), is now estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently claimed they have no records of any Armenian gold in their possession.
It was not easy to trace the circumstances under which the Armenian-owned gold was transferred from Istanbul to the United States almost a century ago. The results of our research on the convoluted series of transactions are summarized below:
The Ottoman government had seized the gold and other valuables belonging to Armenians deported and killed in the 1915 genocide, expropriating their bank accounts and safe deposit boxes. The Ottoman Liquidation Commission used a complex set of bank transfers to hide the trail of this “blood money.” The Turkish Treasury placed the looted Armenian gold initially in the German Deutschebank in Istanbul. In 1916, the gold was transferred to the Bleichroeder Bank in Vienna, and from there moved to the Reichsbank (German Central Bank) in Berlin and was deposited in the account of Ottoman Public Debt.
Comment: There is no record anywhere that the Ottoman Government seized gold or other valuables belonging to Armenians or expropriating bank accounts. US Consul L. Davis speaks of Armenians leaving cash with him to be collected later. Protestant and Catholic Armenians were permitted to return and repossess what they had left behind. After the 30.10.1918 Mudros Treaty about 200 – 300.000 Armenians from Syria returned under British-French occupation to their homes. These left Turkey in late 1921 with their own will, when French armies pulled out! We know that in 1917 when the Tsarist Russian’s refugee ships anchored in the Bosporus, Greek and Armenian grocers were selling loaf of bread and bottle of water for a golden ring! Practically there were no Turkish grocers (or other artisans) and about 180.000 Armenians on the Western costs were never touched on any subject!
According to Efraim & Inari Karsh, (ISBN 0-674-00541-4) “Empires of the Sand”, p.116&134, Ottomans borrowed on Sept. 30th, 1914 from Germany 5 millions Turkish Gold liras at 6% interest, which was paid in several installments so that Turks could enter War. We also have records that Ottomans before WW1 owed a total of 142.2 millions Sterling to foreign creditors and 53% of this was payable to France, 21% to Germany and 14% to Britain. These debts were liquidated after the Lausanne Peace Treaty with the agreement dated 24.7.1923 and paid by the Turkish Republic to creditor states. To think that the Ottomans who could not even pay the salaries of army officers had a surplus of (any) GOLD and sent it to Germany is a fantasy that suits great “treasury hunt dreamers”! The demands of indemnities of US Companies and persons from the Turkish Republic were treated under a separate agreement concluded with exchange of letters in 1937 and paid thereafter with incurred interests. So, legally there is nothing that any State or Entity can demand from the Republic of Turkey for Ottoman debts (or assets) ! . . .
At the end of World War I, when the Allied Powers demanded reparations from Germany and its Ottoman Turkish ally, German officials had no choice but to comply with that request, agreeing to turn over to the Allies the Armenian gold held by the Reichsbank. Accordingly, the expropriated Armenian gold was transferred to France and Great Britain in 1921.
I have no knowledge about the gold of Reichsbank, its transfer or where it came from!
A subsequent British document confirms the true ownership of this gold. On Sept. 26 1924, leaders of the two main opposition parties in Great Britain, Liberal Party leader and former Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, and Conservative Party leader and future Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald pleading for British assistance to Armenians in view of their support for the Allied cause and the great suffering they endured during World War I. The two British leaders argued that “the sum of 5 million pounds (Turkish gold) deposited by the Turkish Government in Berlin in 1916, and taken over by the Allies after the Armistice, was in large part (perhaps wholly) Armenian money. After the enforced deportation of the Armenians in 1915, their bank accounts, both current and deposit, were transferred by order to the State Treasury at Constantinople. This fact enabled the Turks to send five million sterling to the Reichsbank, Berlin, in exchange for a new issue of notes.”
Subsequently, instead of returning the Armenian gold to its original owners, Britain and France sold it to the United States government through J.P. Morgan Bank in Paris, by exchanging it for U.S. Treasury Certificates.
On Jan. 29, 1925, Senator William H. King submitted Resolution 319 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanding that the looted gold be “set aside in trust” for Armenians. The resolution stated: “The Turkish Government had arbitrarily seized and transferred to the Turkish treasury all bank accounts, both current and deposit, belonging to Armenians, by which Armenian gold in the sum of 5 million Turkish pounds, amounting to $22,450,000, was transferred to the Turkish treasury, which gold was afterwards deposited by the Turkish Government in the Reichsbank at Berlin… Said deposit of Armenian gold in the Reichsbank at Berlin was by article 259 of the Treaty of Versailles transferred and surrendered to the principal allied and associated powers, including the United States… Said deposit in equity and right belongs to the Armenians from whom the same was seized, or to their legal representatives… Said deposit should be set aside in trust to be hereafter paid over to the persons from whom said gold was seized, or to their lawful representatives.
Comment: Dr. Fridthjof Nansen, Gen. Secretary of League of Nations, on 21.9.1929 at the 16th Planetary Meeting when speaking on Armenia had confessed that the allies had promised “if you fight with us against the Turks, and if the war ends successfully for us, we promise to give you a national home, liberty and independence”. He further had complained that he went to Armenia but since the Allies did not give money, the projects for recovery were abandoned. Now let us use our logic to evaluate the truth behind many shiny words:
a. By 24.9. 1924 the Lausanne Treaty was over one year old and the British Politicians were “perfectly aware that there was no floating gold searching for pockets”. Britain knew too well that they had abandoned Armenians many times refusing to give them much smaller amounts as credit, and hence this sound like another “ hope in the air” just to cover up the solemn past.
b. As regards Senator King’s report of Jan. 1925, by that time not only the financial matters related to Turkey were settled in 1923, but there was no such indications in the report of General Harbord of 1919, nor in the Near East Relied Report, approved on 22.4.1922. Ambassador Morgenthau was the most capable and trusted man on all money matters. (His son became Secretary of Treasury to Pres. Roosevelt for eleven years). I would ask why none of these persons in bad need of money, never heard of a deposit of 5 millions Sterling or gold in Germany in 1916! How come this was not ever mentioned during the 1919 Paris Conference?
This gold is just a small portion of the billions of dollars of Armenian assets stolen by Turkey and various other countries during and after the Armenian Genocide. The restitution of all looted Armenian assets, wherever they may be, should be one of the highest priorities for those pursuing justice for the horrendous crimes committed against the Armenian nation.
The usual arrogant and slanderous language used by the writer to please the ego of his readers (already voiced in the comments) does not add any seriousness or creditability to this fantasy. An old folk Turkish proverb says: “The hungry hen, dreams of the barn full of barley”!
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Labels: Harut SASSOUNIAN, Sukru Server AYA
2 comments: American Observer said... Mr. Sukru Server Aya, the prolific Turkish writer, methodically and factually dismantles the baseless Armenian claims... again!
23 March, 2011 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Und Bibliotheksverbund, (194.95.59.xxx) Bayern, Germany said... Well Done Harut,
I've just noticed the name CAR ( Center for Armenian Remembrance ) in the following Courthouse news
Are they the same crooks who "created a sham charity as a means by which he could funnel monies for his own personal charity - himself." :
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/03/15/34922.htm
LOS ANGELES (CN) - Two attorneys claim their co-counsel in two class actions that won insurance benefits for victims of the Armenian genocide diverted and laundered almost $1 million from settlements meant for charities to help the Armenian community. "It is with deep sadness that plaintiffs bring this action," Mark Geragos and Brian Kabateck say in their Superior Court complaint.
They sued Vartkes Yeghiayan, Rita Mahdessian, the Center for Armenian Remembrance aka Conservatoire de la Memoire Armenienne, and Yeghiyian Law Corp.
Geragos and Kabateck claim that Yeghiayan "created a sham charity as a means by which he could funnel monies for his own personal charity - himself."Yeghiayan created the Center for Armenian Remembrance in 2005, after a settlement with the New York Life Insurance Company, "to defraud class members, the court and the Armenian community," according to the complaint.
Yeghiayan created the Center for Armenian Remembrance in 2005, after a settlement with the New York Life Insurance Company, "to defraud class members, the court and the Armenian community,"..
Please tell me Harut:Can we safely assume that the "defraud" word is heavily associated with the word of "Armenians" ?
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2011/03/3240-hungry-hen-dreams-of-barn-full-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ArmenianGenocideResourceCenter+%28Armenian+Genocide+Resource+Center%29

Documentary Video on the above mentioned act...

2011-02-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

The documentary shows the First Terrorist Act in Australia implemented by Armenian terorists...

Asagida Avustralya'nin ilk terorist saldirisini gerceklestiren belgesel video var.
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2011/02/3219-video-armenian-terrorist-bombing.html

Ermenilerin Turk konsolosluguna yaptiklari saldirinin bu belgeselin 24 Nisanlarda Avustralya'da tekrar gosterilemesini saglayacak Avustralya'da yasayan yaklasik 100 bin Turkten kaci ya da kac kurulus bunu saglayabilir?

Sukru Server Aya( Author and Resarcher on Armenian Matters ) said about this video; " Last night at home I watched the 45 minute video on Melbourne Turkish Consulate bombing.
It is an excellent documentary, much more intense and cleverly staged comparing Alfred Hitchcock scenarios.
What more, it is true!"

Australia's first modern terrorist act by Levon Demirian and Hagop Levonian

2011-02-08T04:35:00.000-08:00

Old-school ties turn into garrottes after deal bombs
Andrew Rule & John Silvester January 29, 2011

THE bomb exploded under the Turkish consulate in South Yarra well after midnight, when the streets were almost empty. It blew one of the men who made it into pieces. On one piece of flesh-and-bone, police recovered a receipt that led them to a Sydney restaurant.

There they found 174 sticks of gelignite and one Levon Demirian, an Armenian ''patriot'' who, with the dead man Hagop Levonian, had put the bomb in a white Torana and parked it under the building.

By a miracle, the bomb had gone off while Levonian was still setting the timing device, turning him into an instant martyr. It was supposed to explode hours later, when the five-storey building and nearby Toorak Road would be full of people and the bombers safe back in Sydney.

The toll could have been terrible - just one more belated, senseless payback for Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915, a blood vendetta that has haunted Turkey for generations.All this happened on November 23, 1986. The consulate has long gone from 44 Caroline Street and the handsome building strata-titled and sold off to individual buyers who fancied a part of the heart of South Yarra.

When the third floor was put on the market last year, the building's history - as, arguably, the site of Australia's first modern terrorist act - was no more than a conversation starter. More practical issues concerned potential buyers such as Toorak businessman Grant Custance.

For the rest of the story:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/oldschool-ties-turn-into-garrottes-after-deal-bombs-20110128-1a8fk.html

Did Armenian/Turkish Troubles Begin In WWI ? by Prof Justin McCarthy

2011-02-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

Videos

Did Armenian/Turkish Troubles Begin In WWI ? by Prof Justin McCarthy

http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2011/02/3216-video-did-armenianturkish-troubles.html

http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2011/02/3215-video-was-there-armenia-in-ottoman.html?utm_source=BP_recent

2011-01-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

We asked all the controversial questions on our readers’ minds and received pretty candid, informative, and stimulating responses from the president-elect of ATAA (the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.) You can find his bio at the organization’s official and sole website: www.ataa.org. ATAA is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established in Washington DC, USA, in 1979, as an umbrella for the local and regional Turkish-American non-profit organizations coast-to-coast, representing about half a million Turkish American citizens on matters important to Turkey-USA relations. The ATAA does not own, operate or moderate any other information sharing sites or chat groups, although some groups use the acronym ATAA without consent or approval of the ATAA. It has been generally observed that the ATAA has been quite vocal in the recent years in media, academia, and politics , with concerted efforts to educate public. In fact, the ATAA was instrumental in defeating the H.Res. 252 last week. This interview should give our readers some insight into the minds behind the ATAA’s success.

http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2010/12/3194-turkish-armenian-conflict-what-now.html#comment-form
There is much to cover, so let’s start with the most recent events. There has been yet another attempt to resuscitate H.Res. 252 in the U.S. Congress on the eleventh hour. Knowing full well that the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish people would put up a fierce resistance to stop the resolution and would probably succeed, too, why do you think Pelosi resorted to such a risky political move in the last few hours of the 111th Congress?: I cannot speak for Pelosi but I suppose she’s got her own calculations that showed another outcome. If that’s the case, she is misinformed... again. Democrats, as you know, took a beating in the November elections which caused Pelosi to lose her title as the speaker of the House. I am not sure if Pelosi would have been in the mood for a second major defeat so quickly and so close to high holidays. It was almost like pointing at your chin and say “Hit me right here!” (smiles.) It could also be for show. Even if she lost, Pelosi would be able to say to her Armenian voters “Look, I tried. I kept my promise.” This way, Armenian support would continue./ What Pelosi et al failed to consider was high powered demands coming from the executive and legislative branches not to pursue H.Res. 252 and similar requests and advises from the business, industry, and voter community groups. Such intense and instant pressure burst Pelosi’s bubble. Even Pelosi could not ignore the serious destruction she would cause to American interests if she brought this ill-informed and malicious resolution to a vote.: You think HR 252 would lose, though, if came to a floor vote?: The vote would probably be close but no cigar. It would definitely lose, that much I can say. And I say this because most of those who oppose this racist and dishonest resolution would put America’s interests before Armenia’s interest as soon as they are informed as much. At the end of the day, the patriotic feelings in these people would rise and dictate that H.Res. 252 be categorically rejected. After all, H.Res. is not only anti-Turkish and anti-truth, but it is also downright anti-American. : Can you expand on that?: I would be delighted to. For instance, check this poster out.

This photo is straight from Armenian literature . [1] It shows the personnel and students of the ARF Military Academy in Bulgaria, 1907-1907 class. Military academy? In Bulgaria? In 1906? Yes, yes, and yes. Welcome to the real Armenian problem. As you can see, Armenian revolts and acts of treason and terrorism did not start in 1915 as commonly misrepresented by pseudo scholars who call themselves genocide scholars. They started decades ago. According to a reputable British source, 120,000 Muslims, mostly Turkish, were killed by Armenian nationalists in 1914 [2a]. And that does not even take into account the infamous Van Rebellion by Armenians in April of 1915. [2b][2c] Where are the Muslim, mostly Turkish, victims of these trained, armed, uniformed Armenian insurgents? You cannot find a single word about these Armenian hate crimes and war crimes in that biased and ill-informed H.Res. 252. This is a racist attitude on the part of the Armenians and their self-serving allies.
How important is this? Well, consider this: The U.S. crossed oceans and continents to wage a trillion dollar global war on terrorism because 3,000 of its citizens were killed on American soil. Why is it, then, so difficult to understand that the Ottoman Empire, having lost more than 160,000 of its citizens in the 12 month period running from May 1914 , resorted to similar, but much lesser, self-defence measure of TERESET (Temporary Resettlement) of the perpetrators? Rephrased, how can 3,000 victims in 2001 justify a international, global war, but 120,000 victims in 1914 (and many more in 1915) do not justify even a domestic, local TERESET ? The Armenian lobby point to the women and children in the Armenian groups temporarily relocated, but the same fail to point out that there were Muslim women and children forced to flee by the Russian-Armenian forces from the Caucasus into Eastern Anatolia. So, same suffering, same numbers, same area, same era, same wartime conditions... But just because other sufferers are Muslim, mostly Turkish, you don’t get to read about them in evil resolutions like H.Res. 252. This is the kind of selective conscience the racist Armenian falsifiers and their fellow Turk-haters who push H.Res. 252 have. We say if we are all to grieve about human suffering and man’s inhumanity to man, then let’s do that without discriminating on the basis of ethnicity, religion. Let’s grieve for both Armenian and Turk... and Arab, and Jew, and Greek, and Kurd, and Laz, and Circassian, and Albanian, and Bosnian, and Pomak and many others... Why cherry-pick Armenians from the lot and ignore or dismiss the rest? Who gives anyone such power to classify and rank human beings? Only the evil Armenian lobby and their fellow Turk-haters commit such overtly hate-based resolutions, year after year, with absolutely no shame or remorse... Why is my dead lesser than your dead? Why should we grieve your dead and disregard my dead? Who the hell are you? That’s how I feel about the H.Res. 252. Those who want empathy from others should learn to give empathy to others. Then there is the oft misrepresented issue of April 24th. What is the significance of 24th of April, 1915? The AFATH lobby [5] would have you believe it is the beginning of a so called genocide. But is it? What really happened that day? . On that day, some 237 Armenian terror and/or treason suspects (not thousands as claimed) were arrested by the Ottoman police and sent to central Anatolia, to places like Corum, Cankiri, Ankara, etc., and subjected to house arrest. This meant they could roam around during the day, even conduct business which some of them did, but had to check into a designated house at night. Not exactly genocide, is it? Not even Guantanamo, wouldn’t you agree? All of these suspects were returned in the end, except two. Those two were, indeed, murdered but on unrelated disputes of money and trade. No matter how one slices it, none of this sounds like genocide, does it? So, 24th of April is the beginning of OTTOMAN GUANTANAMO, not a bogus genocide as promoted in H.Res. 252. Turks and Armenians had lived in a relatively harmonious cohabitation in Anatolia for nearly a millennium before the Armenian took up arms against their own government towards the end of that millennium (i.e. 1893-1915). Had the Armenians (and others) not taken up arms against their own neighbors, co-citizens, and government, they would have still been living in Anatolia today, just like the Armenians of Istanbul who mostly stayed loyal to the Ottoman Empire. Since when, then, defending one’s home a genocide? Would America behave differently today if three million Americans (roughly equivalent of 120,000 Ottomans killed by Armenians in 1914 alone) were mercilessly killed by some insurgent groups who then enthusiastically joined the enemy armies invading America?
Take a look at this other photo, also from Armenian sources. [Houshamatyan book, page 45] [3]. Here you can see the Armenian gangs, para military hoodlums, armed to the teeth, with mostly Russian deadly Mosin rifles given to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation terrorists by Russia starting from 1893 [4].

Armenian militia, just as deadly as the Armenian uniformed forces pictured above. Can you imagine? All of these thugs, murderers, and terrorists were presented to the unsuspecting Western readers as “poor, starving Armenians” murdered by barbaric Turks. Such narrative fit their bias perfectly. Never mind that it was fake, false, and untrue. Armenian archives must be full of these photos, letters, documents, and “smoking guns”, which helps explain why Armenian archives in the hands of Armenian government, churches, and parties remain closed to scholarly study to this date. Turks have opened their archives more than two decades ago and scholars from 80 countries have already studied them. We have nothing to fear from the truth, but Armenians tremble when we suggest that a “committee of historians” study all the archives. When you see the meaningless Armenian resistance to scholarly fact-finding, it makes you think, what are Armenians hiding? Of course, looking at those photos above, and thousands like them, we have slight idea (smiles.)
Where are the Turks killed by these blood-thirsty Armenian terrorists? Where? Do not look for them in that malicious H.Res. 252 because you will not find them there. That is what both angers and frustrates, but also energizes and motivates me, and tens of thousands of Turkish Americans like me. We are the voice of those silent masses who cannot speak out to defend themselves against slanders and lies. Those nameless, faceless, voiceless Turkish victims find a voice in us. Many of those Turkish victims were in my father’s extended family in Kirlikova and my mother’s family in Skopje. Every Turkish family has similar stories of suffering and loss. And where is all that? You cannot find them in the narratives of the AFATH community. [5] It is exactly because of these reasons, I have invented a new word, "Ethocide", a companion and supplementary term to “Genocide”, at exactly at 8:58 am, on Wednesday, May 7, 2003, after being frustrated by the incredibly biased coverage of Turkish-Armenian issue in the American press. [6] Ethocide, my humble gift to the English language, is coined from the words "ethics" and "cide". Its companion term in Turkish, Ahlakkirim, is also my invention and modest gift to the Turkish language. They both mean one and the same thing with the short definition: "systematic extermination of ethics via deliberate and malicious mass deception for political and/or other benefits. For a longer and proper definition you can go to www.ethocide.com. [7] I want the newer generations to be able to fight the bogus Armenian genocide effortlessly with proper tools like this new term. So called genocide scholars are committing this crime of conscience, ethocide, every time they ignore or dismiss the “six T’s of the Turkish Armenian conflict. [8] Anyone who wishes to learn more about the falsifications, misrepresentations, lies, and fabrications embodied in the H.Res. 252 should go to reference [9].

Genocide scholars and other “ethociders” often deceive people with photos like this one which they claim belonged to the Armenian dead in 1915, whereas it is proven to be a painting by the Russian artist Verascahgin that was created in 1877. It is still hanging in the Museum of Moscow today. [7] This is how fake and evil H.Res. 252 really is.
: What do you think about this image of Turks persistently promoted by the Armenians as barbaric, ruthless overlords, even in the H.Res. 252 and pretty much everywhere else?: I think will ask my friend Voltaire , the famous 18th Century French philosopher, to come to my aid here (smiles.) You see, Voltaire was a campaigner against tyranny and bigotry, which is probably why he could not keep out of trouble. Voltaire, the Renaissance man of the Enlightenment, always struck back with bitter, mocking, poignant sarcasm whenever he was attacked. Voltaire often scrutinized the political and philosophical controversies of the 18th century and fought tirelessly for the oppressed. And Voltaire did comment on Turks, too, and here is what he said: “ The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught the Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory." Enough said, I presume? : Considering the “Aid Raid” fallout between Israel and Turkey, do you think HR 252 would fail a floor vote without the usual stiff resistance from the Jewish lobby?: The amicable Jewish Turkish relations go back further in history than the history of the United States. Turkey is a home, just like Israel, for every Jew, to come live, prosper, build a community, and feel safe. Both Israel and the Jewish lobby know this well which may be why they were measured in their comments after the “Aid Raid” last June, save a few extremists on Jewish and Turkish sides. Turkish-Jewish friendship predates even 1492 Spanish Inquisitions, when Jews found a home in Turkish lands after being expelled under the well documented threats of "convert to Christianity or die... or leave Spain." When European countries would not allow expelled Jews in for fear of retaliation from Catholic Rome, the Ottoman Empire not only invited the homeless Jews but also sent the Ottoman Navy to bring them to Turkish lands. Jews prospered there as loyal Ottoman citizens. Such history cannot be exchanged for a few Armenian votes or campaign dollars, although some ignorant ones still do. There is that aspect. At issue are not Israel, the Jewish lobby or even Armenian interests; at issue are American interests. Plain and simple. Passing HR 252 would cause irreparable harm to Turkey-USA relations which may manifest themselves in the US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and many others. The question in front of the 111th US Congress people would be “Do Armenian interests trump American interests?” When that happens, you can pretty much guess the outcome. If your readers wish to know more about Turkish-Jewish relations and how Armenian gangs murdered Turks and Jews during WWI, they should refer to reference [10]. In summary, H.Res. 252 was Bad for national security as it negatively affected the use of Incirlik Airbase in Turkey; partnership in Afghanistan; cooperation in Iraq, energy security, and a whole host of other issues. It also would devastate the U.S. policy in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa, where Turkey continues to work with the U.S. on moderation, development, and peace. H.Res. 252 was anti-business as it sought to limit and punish bilateral commercial relationships where the U.S. had a huge surplus with multibillion dollars in commercial aviation, aerospace, and defence sales. These mean American jobs. Nothing remotely comparable comes from tiny, land-locked, poverty-stricken, aggressive, violent, and corrupt Armenia whose top export is illegal aliens and crooks and top import is foreign aid from American taxpayers and donations from Armenian Americans. One should be insane to support crooks and terrorists, especially in the face of insulting and angering a bulwark of Western defence alliance, and island of peace, stability and progress, a driving force in moderation, and a reliable friend in the troubled Middle East. Forces of reason and moderation reigned, thankfully, as the Obama Administration opposed the bringing of this contentious issue to a floor vote with both the Defense and State Departments playing active roles on Capitol Hill in opposition to H.Res. 252. If you look back, you will see that this deceptive and dishonest resolution was passed by the HFAC by the narrowest of margins: a single vote, thanks to the under-handed tactics of Congressman Berman. The American people and American interests deserve better than these shady politicians like Pelosi, Berman, Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, and other prominent members of the AFATH community. [5]The Armenian American National Committee (ANCA), the U.S. representative of a political party in Armenia called the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or ARF for short, demanded that the United States Congress take H.Res. 252 to a floor vote. Their proxies named above obliged. Last March, H.Res. 252 had controversially passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee 23-22, severely harming the U.S. policy to support a Joint Historical Commission to address the Armenian allegation of genocide, and causing serious disruption in U.S. - Turkish relations. H.Res. 252 is an anti-Turkish, anti-Muslim racist measure that erroneously defines the Armenian case as genocide, a contention with which the vast majority of experts on WWI Middle East history and the Ottoman Empire disagree. [11] H.Res. 252 unfairly accuses, judges and convicts people of Turkish heritage with this high crime without due process. On the other hand, Armenian community in the U.S. is exposed with yet another cycle of massive fraud, stealing American taxpayers’ money to the tune of $163 million. [12] And as Wikileaks revealed, the Armenian Republic sells arms to Iran, promoting an aggressive policy in the Caucuses and Middle East, and causing U.S. soldiers in Iraq to be killed by those weapons. [13] The Armenian Republic currently occupies western Azerbaijan, by the massacres and forced migration of nearly one million Azeris. [14] How can any reasonable politician support the Armenian crooks and terrorists, especially in the face of serious threat to American interests? When Saddam crossed the line in to Kuwait in 1991, we reversed aggression using military might. When Milosevic resorted to ethnic cleansing and genocide, we bombed Yugoslavia in 1998 to smithereens. But when Armenia committed all of these crimes against humanity, namely aggression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in Karabagh, some unscrupulous politicians like Pelosi, Berman, Schiff, Pallone, Radanovich, Menendez and others tried shamelessly to reward the rogue state of Armenia and its murderous leaders. These kinds of blatant double standards, bias, and bigotry are neither helping America’s image nor America’s global interests. Here we have the most powerful nation on earth, represented by political pygmies! We shall continue to educate the American public to this sad picture.: I know we cannot cover all aspects of this 100 year old controversy in one interview, but I thank you for your time and the insight you provided.: It was my pleasure. May I please leave your readers with the following quote from 1923, food for thought so to speak, so that when they see the H.Res. 252 reincarnated under yet other number next year, they will at least have a baseline to which to compare the baseless Armenian allegations: "…In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well- known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies…." [15]Invoking the visionary leader Ataturk, who so aptly put it for the rest of us, may there be in the new year and beyond”Peace At Home, Peace In The World”
Notes & References:
[1] Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, Epic Battles, 1890-1914, The Next Day Color Printing, Inc., Glendale, CA, U.S.A., 2006, page 186. [2a] The Dictionary of WWI, Stephen Pope & Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, 2003, ISBN 0 85052 979-4, page 34[2b] The Armenian Rebellion at Van, Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, Cemaletting Taskiran, Omer Turan (The University of Utah Press, Salt lake City, USA, 2006)[2c] Free E-Book : "Genocide Of Truth" by Sukru Server Aya, Based On Neutral or Anti-Turkish Sources ( Istanbul Commerce University, Turkey, 2008) For a copy: Armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/04/2429-new-e-book-genocide-of-truth-based.html[3] Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, Epic Battles, 1890-1914, The Next Day Color Printing, Inc., Glendale, CA, U.S.A., 2006, page 45. [4] Houshamatyan of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Centennial, Album-Atlas, Volume I, Epic Battles, 1890-1914, The Next Day Color Printing, Inc., Glendale, CA, U.S.A., 2006, page 241. [5] AFATH : Armenian Falsifiers and Turk -Haters.[6] www.ethocide.com : Ethocide, Not Genocide: www.turkiye.net:bbasol:sonyazi.htm Soykirim Degil, Ahlakkirim : www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=323&yid=4 [7] ethocide.com:news.html : Ethocide: A new term coined by Ergun Kirlikovali, a Turkish-American student and researcher in history, on May 7, 2003, as a long needed companion term and an antonym for the term "genocide" created by Lemkin in 1943 (Turkish counterpart also coined: "AHLAKKIRIM")"Systematic extermination of ethics via malicious and deliberate mass deception for political, personal, economic, social, moral, religious, ethnic, national, regional, and other gain." Ethocide is a crime of conscience, committed by biased and bigoted individuals who subscribe to racist and dishonest interpretation of history and are intolerant of dissent. Called "ethociders", such people will openly resort to censorship of dissenting views and intimidation of dissenters. [8] The Six Apologies Turks Have Been Waiting For Since WW1 : www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=302&yid=4 [9] If Facts Matter To You, Then Read This Analysis On H.Res. 252: www.historyoftruth.com:authors:ergun-kirlikovali:8393-if-facts-matter-to-you-then-read-this-analysis-on-hres-252 [10] Israeli & Jewish Sources That Refute The Alleged Armenian Genocide : www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=462&yid=4 [11] Declaration Signed By 69 Prominent American Academicians : http://www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=338&yid=4[12] Massive Armenian Fraud Exposed … Again!: www.turkla.com/2010/10/15/massive-armenian-fraud-exposed-B€ -again [13] Wikileaks Bombshell: Armenian Arms Sold To Iran Used In Killing Us Soldiers In Iraq: www.turkla.com/2010/11/29/wikileaks-bombshell-armenian-arms-sold-to-iran-used-in-killing-us-soldiers-in-iraq:[14] Why Turkey is right in demanding the end to occupation in Karabakh: news.az/articles/turkey/29003[15] The Secret of the Near East, Lamsa, George M., a missionary well known for his research on Christianity, The Ideal Press, Philadelphia 1923, p 133More References (which are not listed in the text above:)[16] Bernard Lewis Speaking on Armenian Allegations, 3 min 29 sec - Oct 11, 2007: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG70UWESfu4 [17] http://www.tallarmeniantale.com : Tall Armenian Tale - TAT : Supports the case against the Armenian Genocide Myth with mostly impartial evidence.[18] www.turkishcoalition.org : The Turkish Coalition of America - TCA : Established in 2007, The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) is working on matters related to Turkish American issues and Turkish Heritage. [19] www.taldf.org : Turkish American Legal Defense Fund : TALDF is established in order to educate and advise Turkish Americans regarding their constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression. TALDF successfully defended rights of individuals harassed and slandered by Armenian(s) for rejecting bogus Armenian claims of genocide. [20] www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr : Ermeni Sorunu means The Armenian Problem in Turkish. This site provides a detailed account of the problem and has extensive archive database. Also in French, German and Turkish. [21] www.eraren.org : Institute For Armenian Research : ERAREN.org is the web site of Institute for Armenian Research where scholarly studies based on primary sources elucidate Armenian claims and falsifications. [22] www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr : Turkish State Archives : One of the most comprehensive archives in the world and with all its massive references, it only give truth seekers a glimpse of what the Western scholars prejudicially ignored and Armenians falsifiers censored since 1915 and prior. [23] www.turkla.com : comments on timely issues concerning the Turkish-Armenian conflict and provides a databank on sources and materials frequently censored by Armenian falsifiers and Turk haters.[25] www.historyoftruth.com : comments on timely issues concerning the Turkish-Armenian conflict and provides a databank on sources and materials frequently censored by Armenian falsifiers and Turk haters[26] www.turkishjournal.com : comments on timely issues concerning the art, culture, heritage, economy, industry, sports, and many other issues concerning Turkey and America.[27] www.turkishny.com : comments on timely issues concerning the art, culture, heritage, economy, industry, sports, and many other issues concerning Turkey and America.[28] www.mediawatchnow.com : comments on timely issues concerning the Turkish-Armenian conflict and provides talking points to refute articles that unfairly, unjustifiably, deliberately, and in an unprovoked manner defame and demonize Turkish heritage, Turkish Americans, Turks, Turkics, and Turkey.[29] www.turkishalert.com : comments on timely issues concerning the Turkish-Armenian conflict and provides talking points to refute articles that unfairly, unjustifiably, deliberately, and in an unprovoked manner defame and demonize Turkish heritage, Turkish Americans, Turks, Turkics, and Turkey.[30] History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol I & II, Stanford Shaw (Cambridge University Press, London, New York, Melbourne, 1976)[31] The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story, Heath W. Lowry ( The Isis Press, Istanbul, Turkey, 1990)[32] The Ottoman Peoples and the End of Empire, Justin McCarthy (Arnold, London, U.K., 2001[33] Declaration Signed by 69 Prominent North American Academicians, New York Times and Washington Post, may 19, 1985 (for a copy: www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=338&yid=4[34] Ermeniler: Sürgün ve Göç, Türk Tarih Kurumu (Ankara, Turkey, 2004)[35] The Armenian File, Kamuran Gurun (Rustem Bookshop, Mersin, Turkey, 1985)[36] The Armenians in History and the Armenian Question, Esat Uras (Documentary Publications, Istanbul, Turkey, 1988)[37] “Pursuing the Just Cause of Their People”, Michael M. Gunter (Greenwood Press, New York, USA, 1986)[38] “Ermenilerin Zorunlu Göçü, 1915-1917, Kemal Cicek (Turk tarih Kurumu, Ankara, Turkey, 2005)[39] Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html (See how the AFATH community always invoke articles 1-3 which define genocide , but completely ignore articles 4-9 which dictate how the genocide verdict shall be reached: via “competent tribunal, not political resolutions! )[40] Ergun KIRLIKOVALI, 2003, “It Was Not ‘Genocide’; It was - and still is – ‘Ethocide’ “, www.turkiye.net/bbasol/gorusler27.htm ; [41] Ergun KIRLIKOVALI, 2003, “SOYKIRIM DEGIL, AHLAKKIRIM ” ( www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=323&yid=4 )

2010-11-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

University of Wollongong Thesis Collections

Australian press coverage of the
Armenian genocide 1915-1923
Vahe Georges Kateb
University of Wollongong

Kateb, Vahe G, Australian press coverage of the Armenian genocide 1915-1923,
M.A. thesis, Graduate School of Journalism, University of Wollongong, 2003.
http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/215
This paper is posted at Research Online.

AUSTRALIAN PRESS COVERAGE OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
1915-1923
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of the degree
Masters of Arts
from
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
by
VAHE GEORGES KATEB
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
2003
for the rest of the article:
http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215&context=theses

2010-11-26T14:40:00.001-08:00

Re the comments about Malta.

The British sent these men to Malta in the hope of finding evidence against them of crimes against the British (and Christians). Most were city Governors, officers etc and some were accused of mistreating POWs. Several were Commandants of POW camps.

Mazlum Bey was Commandant of Afion camp for about 9 months in 1916. He was replaced on the recommendation of Turkish Camp Inspector Ziya Bey, who made many improvements of camp conditions throughout Turkey. (Unfortunately he was also sent to Malta for a time). Evidence was not found whilst the men were locked away.

Mazlum Bey was accused of cruelty and other 'crimes'. One crime was the sodomy of two British naval men. However, the two men examined by British surgeons were found not to have had any signs of sodomy practiced upon them. Despite some prisoners accusing him of beatings, various reports from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent stated that they had been exaggerated. However, it seems that he was benefitting from inflated prices and theft of supplies. Thus he was removed by the Turkish War Office at the end of 1916.

Many of the memoirs published at the end of the war have exaggerated their hardships. Many of these memoirs do not reveal that at the main camp for the Berlin-Baghdad railway at Belemedik, the men were able to drink alcohol (also at Afyon), shop for themselves, visit taverns and restaurants - and also visit the local railway brothel.
The figures relating to the death rates in the camps have also been exaggerated over the years. It was to the benefit of the British Government to exaggerate Turkish behaviour to justify the take-over and carving up of Ottoman territory after the war.

Dr.Jennifer Lawless
Inspector, HSIE (History)
02 9367 8151 Tel
02 9367 8476 Fax
jennifer.lawless@bos.nsw.edu.au

see how ROBERT MANNE propagating his view or provacating Australians

2010-11-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

( ROBERT MANNE' inin Avustralyalilari nasil kiskirtigini okuyabilirsinz)

The following interview was broadcast Monday, 12 February night on Australia’s National Broadcaster; the ABC. Professor outlines Armenian connection to Gallipoli

Reporter: Mark Colvin

MARK COLVIN: What links the first genocide of the 20th century with the battle most often cited as defining the birth of Australia's national identity?The genocide was the Turkish massacre of the Armenians; the battle was Gallipoli.And what they have in common is that they both started on almost the same day, within a few hundred kilometres of each other.Why don't we know this as a nation? That's the question posed in an essay by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at LaTrobe University, in this month's issue of the magazine The Monthly.He's discovered that Australian historians have hardly noticed the coincidence of the two events.

ROBERT MANNE: In 1915 the Ottoman Government began one of the first really systematic genocides in history, certainly of the 20th century. And within a year or so, perhaps one million Armenians had been killed because they were a Christian minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which was in its point of crisis.And there'd been persecution for a long time, but this was not persecution, it was the attempt to eliminate a people.

MARK COLVIN: And of course the Turkish Government throughout the 20th century denied that this ever happened, and denial is still going on. A journalist, Hrant Dink, was just murdered the other day for talking about the Armenian genocide. To what extent has it been covered up in history?

ROBERT MANNE: Well, I think two things; I think most people have a vague awareness now because the Armenians have been absolutely determined not to let it just fade out of history, but I don't think it's as well known as it ought to be.The Turkish Government has always utterly denied that a genocide took place, although they admit that some massacres took place. But they largely blame the Armenians for that saying they were a rebellious, subversive element at a time of wartime crisis. But it's at the heart of Turkish identity is to deny the meaning and the reality of that genocide.

MARK COLVIN: And you say that Australian historians have effectively ignored it, and that's despite a really close coincidence between the genocide and a key event in Australian history.

ROBERT MANNE: That's right. It seems to me the strangest thing. We have Anzac Day as April the 25th 1915 is remembered; the Armenians have April the 24th 1915 as their day of mourning, which they take to be the beginning of the genocide.The two events not only coincided in territory and in time, but there is quite a lot of evidence that the genocide was pushed on because of the Dardanelle campaign of the Anglo-French forces in which the Australians were involved.So despite the fact that the things happened at the same time and in the same place more or less, and they were even kind of connected with a causal link, I looked through book after book about Gallipoli, and there's no end of books that Australians have written about it, and virtually none of them mention it for more than a passing paragraphs or a couple of lines.

MARK COLVIN: What is the causal link? Tell us more about that.

ROBERT MANNE: Well, there are some contemporary historians, there's a wonderful Turkish historian, Tanner Akcham, who think that when the Gallipoli campaign began, or when the Dardanelles were first bombed by the Anglo-French in March 1915, that was the final moment of reckoning, and that the Turkish regime, which was run by two or three young Turks were the dominant figures, they set upon and decided on a systematic extermination of the Armenians, saying that at this moment of crisis, where Constantinople might fall, we can't afford to have a subversive minority within our country.
So, the Dardanelle campaign and the Gallipoli landings pushed on and maybe not exactly caused, but at least triggered the final events that led to the genocide.

MARK COLVIN: So why should Australian historians look more closely at it?
Because our national myth says that we weren't really the strategic force behind the Dardanelle campaign, we were just the pawns, we were just the people who were thrown into the breech.

ROBERT MANNE: Yes, my point is not so much that they should, although I wish they had. My point is how strange it is that the event that's really by far the most important historical event in the national imaginary in Australia, which is the Gallipoli campaign, our historians have never thought to ask the obvious questions about the connection between the two events, or even to comment on the fact that the two events took place at the same time.Apart from the poet Les Murray, I've not come across an Australian writer who's really thought imaginatively about the connection of the two events in whatever they've written.

MARK COLVIN: And you think that's not likely to change? You say, "in the Australian collectively memory of Gallipoli, the Armenian genocide simply has no role, I suspect it never will".
ROBERT MANNE: Yes, that's what I think. That is because, as I say, I don't think …
MARK COLVIN: Is that just your natural pessimism or do you think historians are simply unlikely to heed your call?
ROBERT MANNE: It's not really pessimism in so much as to think that history and collective memory are different things. And that Gallipoli, this event that's so important to Australians has never been an important event for historical reasons. I think it was an important event at first because it was the point at which the Australian nation felt it was a nation, which they hadn't felt at federation, and where they felt they showed to the British and the British Empire, the kind of manliness that they possessed. And I think always Gallipoli has been tied up with identity and almost never been really connected to a kind of interest in the history of the First World War, let alone an interest in the Ottoman Empire.And so it's not really pessimism so much as kind of trying to identify the difference between history and myth, that I think it'll never become a matter of great interest in Australia, except perhaps for some intellectuals.
MARK COLVIN: But historians are supposed to be interested in facts not national myths, aren't they?
ROBERT MANNE: Yes, but the historians that move time and again back to Gallipoli, I think are driven by the interests of myth. Even if they want to revise the story, what they're doing is revising the myth. But they're not really interested in the kind of overall historical questions that are connected to it.
MARK COLVIN: Robert Manne, whose essay on that subject is published in this month's issue of the magazine The Monthly

2010-11-23T15:59:00.001-08:00

Taner Akcam Story : From terrorist to Armenian Propagandist
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2010/11/3175-terrorist-taner-akcams-struggle.html

Related posts:
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2010/03/3023-review-essay-armenian-question-by.html http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/01/2698-review-essay-scrutiny-of-akcams.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/03/2777-minnesota-university-taner-akcams.html

2010-01-19T16:05:00.000-08:00

Sahtekarlıkla Tarihi Değiştirmeye Yeltenmek:
Oxford Üniversitesi Yayınevi ve ‘Ermeni Meselesi’Yazan: Jeremy Salt -Bilkent Üniversitesi Tarih Okutmanı
Oxford Üniversitesi Yayınevi 2005’te, Donald Bloxham’ın The Great Game of Genocide:

Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians (Muhteşem Soykırım Oyunu: Emperyalizm, Milliyetçilik ve Osmanlı Ermenilerinin Yok Edilmesi) adlı kitabını yayınladı. Ciltli olan ilk baskısını 2007’de karton kapaklı baskısı takip etti.

Bu kitabın, Osmanlı Ermenilerinin Birinci Dünya Savaşı dönemindeki kaderi hakkında dengeli bir çalışma olduğu kesinlikle söylenemez, ancak bir savcının ithamı denilebilir; fakat burada, konunun başka bir yönünü ele alacağız.Kitapta, parlak kağıda basılmış, dokuz fotoğraf var. Bu fotoğrafların sekizinin kaynağı belirtilmekle beraber bir tanesinin kaynağı belirtilmemiş. O fotoğrafta, ceketinin önü iliklenmemiş kravatlı bir adamın elindeki bir şeyle, etrafını sarmış olan üstü başı liğme liğme çocuklar ve bir yetişkinden oluşan çemberin önünde ayakta durduğu görülüyor. Fotoğrafın altındaki yazıda: ‘Elindeki ekmekle, açlıktan kıvranmakta olan Ermenilerle alay eden bir Türk yetkilisi’ diye izahat verilmiş.Sadece üstünkörü bir göz atmak bile, fotoğrafta bir tuhaflık olduğunu hissetmek için yeterli. Adamın ceketinin bir yanı, diğer yanından daha koyu renkte. Fotoğrafın ortasından geçen hafif düzensiz çizgi net olarak görülebiliyor. Fotoğrafta arka planda yer alan duvar, ayakta duran adamın arkasında aniden yok olup yerini beyaz bir boşluğa bırakıyor. Yerde yatan bir çocuk, bir deri bir kemik kalmış olan kolunu havaya doğru kaldırmış. Bu kolun tüm boyu, çocuğun dizlerinin altına uzanacak kadar uzun. Çok zor görülen diğer eli ve bileğinin dolgun etli olduğu görülüyor. Ayakta duran adamın sağında oturan küçük çocuk sanki elinde bir şey tutuyor gibi, fakat ne olduğu anlaşılmıyor.Şüphe uyandırdığı için, fotoğraf Ankara’da bir foto analizcisine götürüldü. Fotoğrafın konusu hakkında hiç bir şey söylenmeden, kendisinden fotoğrafı incelemesi istendi. Analizci, fotoğrafı 2400 misli büyüterek görüntü yüzeyine baktığında “pikseller” yani fotoğrafı meydana getiren küçük haç biçimindeki hücreler ortaya çıktı. Analizcinin, bunun bir ‘fotoğraf’değil, foto montaj yöntemiyle bir çok fotoğraflardan kesilip biçilerek bir araya getirilmiş bir ‘fotoğraf çorbası’ olduğunu anlaması sadece 10 dakika sürdü.Bu sahtekarlığı teknik açıdan ele veren, “pikseller” oldu. Eğer bu gerçek bir fotoğraf olsaydı, haç işaretlerinin hepsi de homojen olurdu, fakat değillerdi. Piksellerin kimi bir yöne eğikken diğerleri başka yönlere bakıyordu. Analizci, adamın sağ kolunun o vücuda ait olmadığı sonucuna vardı. O kısım, başka bir fotoğraftan buraya kaynaştırılmış ve sağ bacağı tamamen yok edilmiş gibi görünüyordu. Adamın sağındaki çocuk ise elinde hiç bir şey tutmuyordu; sadece fotoğrafı düzen sahtekar, bu kısmı kesip çıkarttığı fotoğraftan parmakların etrafını keserken yeterince özenli davranmamıştı.Fotoğrafın altında yazıldığı gibi bu adam bir ‘Türk resmi yetkilisi’ olamazdı, çünkü o zaman Türkiye yoktu. (Benzeri yanlış bir referans ‘Türk askeri’ şeklinde diğer bir fotoğraf altı yazısında da verilmiş.) Foto analizcisine, fotoğraftaki adamın kim olduğu iddiası söylendiğinde, mantıklı olan şu izahata dikkat çekti: “Hiç bir Osmanlı memuru yakalı gömlek ve kravat üstüne önü iliklenmemiş bir ceket giymez; tüm düğmeleri boynuna kadar iliklenmiş yakasız bir gömlek giyer” dedi. Ve, “Kesinkes, (fotoğraf çektirirken mutlaka) başında fesi olurdu. Ayrıca, bir Osmanlı memuru böyle bir fotoğraf için poz verir miydi?” Muhtemelen hayır!Tüm bunlara ilave olarak, 20. yüzyılın başlarında fotoğrafçıların taşıması gereken alet edevat göz önüne getirildiğinde, fotoğrafçının, tam da bu sırada, güya ‘Türk resmi yetkilisinin’ açlıktan biçare çocuklara bir ekmek parçasını göstererek alay ettiği esnada yetiştiğine inanmamız mı bekleniyor? Kameranın arkasındaki kişi onlara; ‘Bu pozda kal!’ mı dedi, yoksa, sahneyi yeniden canlandırmasını mı istedi?Bu satırların yazarı tarafından Oxford Üniversitesi Yayınevi’ne (OÜY) sahte fotoğraf hakkında bir uyarı mektubu yazılır. Bunu, İngiltere Türk Dernekleri Federasyonu‘nun (İTDF) Ekim ayında yazdığı şikayet mektubu izler.19 Ekim tarihinde OÜY Tarih Yayınları Sorumlusu Christopher Wheeler tarafından İTDF Asılsız İddialarla Mücadele Komitesi Başkanı Servet Hassan’ın e-postasına gelen cevaba göre, OÜY fotoğrafın sahte olduğunu kabul etmiş ve stoğunda kalan söz konusu kitapları yok etmiştir.Ancak, Oxford Üniversitesi Yayınevi, kitabın yeni baskısında da bu fotoğrafa yer vermiş ve altına aşağıdaki açıklamayı eklemiştir:‘Bu fotoğrafta, bir Osmanlı yetkilisinin (bu kez Türk yerine Osmanlı dendiğine dikkatinizi çekerim), elinde tuttuğu ekmekle, açlıktan kıvranmakta olan Ermeni çocuklarıyla alay ettiği iddia edilmekte.Halbuki bu resim, iki (veya daha fazla) fotoğraf parçalarının bir araya getirilmesiyle düzenlenmiş bir sahte resimdir.Eğer her iki tarafın da günümüzdeki politik amaçlarına erişmek için delilleri çarpıtarak ne kadar propaganda yaptığını kanıtlamak örneğine gereksinim duyuluyorsa, bu çok iyi bir örnektir.Bu fotoğrafa, hakiki olduğu inancıyla kitabın ilk baskısında da yer verilmisti. Aynı fotograf daha önce, 1980 yılında basılan Gérard Chaliand ve Yves Ternon'un Le Genocide des Armeniens (Ermeni Soykırımı) adlı kitabında kullanılmıştı.Bu da, bir belgenin daha önce başkaları tarafından kullanılmış olmasının, bunun kaynağının araştırılması gerekliliğini önlemeyeceği gerçeğini ortaya koyuyor.Ayrıca, kaynağı belirlenemeyen (bu gibi) fotoğrafların, dikkatlice incelenmesi gerektiğini de kanıtlıyor.Bu olay, dökümanların gerçek olup olmadığını incelemek konusunda tecrübeli olan, fakat fotoğraflar hakkında fazla tecrübesi olmayan tarihçiler için de önemli bir deneyim.Hem yayıncılar, hem de yazar, bu sahtekarlığın dikkatlerine getirildiği için müteşekkirdirler’.Bunu takiben, Christopher Wheeler’in Kasım ayında İTDF’ye yazdığı mektupta sahtekarlık bir ‘karma/ derleme fotoğraf‘ olarak tanımlanıyor ve OÜY’nce kabul gören görüşün ‘sözkonusu fotoğrafı sessizce kitaptan çıkarmaktansa sahte fotoğrafa yeni baskıda taze bir altyazı ile yer verme kararının sahtekarlara daha etkili bir uyarıcı cevap olacağı‘ yönünde olduğu belirtiliyor. Gerçi, her ne kadar ‘fotoğrafın’ kaynağının olmaması şüphe uyandırması için yeterliyse de o dönem fotoğraflarının kaynağının bilinmemesi sıradışı bir durum değildir.Ancak, bırakın büyüteçle incelemeyi, bir çıplak gözü bile kandırması mümkün olmayan bu ‘fotoğraf‘ için bir ‘sahtekarlık şaheseri’ denilemez ve fotoğrafın basılması için bahane olarak gösterilemez; sadece hafifletici nedendir. Mektubun sonunda, tarihte belge sahteciliğine referans olarak ‘Konstantin‘in Hediyesi’ fermanı (Roma Kilisesi bu sahte belgeye dayanarak Batı Roma‘ya sahip olmuştur) gösterilerek tarihçilerin ve yayıncıların çok dikkatli olması gerektiği vurgulanıyor.Mektupta satılmış olan kitaplar ve özellikle şu anda dünyanın çeşitli ülke kütüphanelerinin raflarında bulunan kitapların akibeti konusunda yapılması gerekenlerden hiç bahsedilmiyor.Kitabın yeni baskısında da yer verilen sahte fotoğrafın altında yazılanlar tüm önemli konuları hasır altı ediyor.Örneğin, fotoğraftaki kişinin Türk değil Osmanlı olduğundan söz edilmeden, sessizce değiştirilmiş olması gibi.Tabii ki ‘her iki taraf’ ta propaganda yapıyor olabilir, fakat Türk ‘tarafında’, (en azından bu yazarın haberdar olduğu kadarıyla) yazılı malzeme ve fotoğraf bazında Ermeni ‘tarafının’ işlediği gibi bir belge sahtekarlığı yok.Kitap ilk basıldığı zaman fotoğrafın ‘hakiki olduğuna inanılıyordu’ açıklamasını kabul etmek çok zor. Dokuz tane fotoğraf basılmış.Sekizinin kaynağı açıkça belirtilmiş fakat bir tanesi için hiç bir kaynak verilmemiş.Hatta bu fotoğraf için Chaliand ve Ternon kitabında da kaynak belirtilmemiş. Sadece bu durum bile, birisinin bu fotoğrafın gerçek olduğundan şüphe duyması gerektiğine işaret ediyor.Bu fotoğraf, bilindiği kadarıyla, 2008 yılına kadar Erivan’daki Ermeni Soykırımı Müzesi’nde sergilenmekteydi (Halen aynı sergide mevcut olup olmadığı bilinmemektedir).Aynı fotoğraf, ABD Kongresi’nin İnternet Kütüphanesi’nde de hiç bir kaynak gösterilmeden yer almıştır. Yukarıda izah edilen tüm hususlara ilave olarak, bu ‘fotoğrafın’ büyük bir ihtimalle sahte olduğunu görmek için ‘detaylı bir inceleme’ye gerek olmadığı çok açıktır.Genelde OÜY kaynak araştırması hususunda olağanüstü titizdir. 19 Ekim’de Servet Hassan’a gönderdiği mesajında Bay Wheeler bu fotoğrafın bir ‘açık kaynağı‘ olmadığını itiraf ediyor. Bu da bize, birilerinin mutlaka resim konusunda kuşkularının olduğunu ima ediyor.O halde, neden kitabın editörleri bu sahte fotoğrafın basılmasına izin verdi?Belge sahtekarlığı, ‘Ermeni meselesinde’ başka türlü kanıtlanamayan, fakat kanıtlanmaya çalışılan konulara kamuoyunu inandırmak için 1920’den beri kullanıla gelen bir yöntemdir.Bunların içinde en kötü üne sahip olanı ‘Andonian belgeleri’ diye anılan, güya, İttihat ve Terakki Hükümeti’nin ve bilhassa Talat Paşa’nın, Ermenileri kasıtlı olarak yok etmek amacını güttüğünü ispatlamak gayretiyle ortaya atılan ‘telgraf’ iddiaları ve başka benzer “sözde dokümanlar’ grubudur.Bunların sahte olduğu 20 yıl önce ispatlandığı halde, hala, zaman zaman su yüzüne çıkarlar; özellikle de İngiliz gazeteci Robert Fisk’in yazılarında.Başka bir sözde ‘döküman’da, İttihat ve Terakki Hükümeti’nin 1914 sonları veya 1915 başlarında hazırladığı, İngiltere’nin İstanbul’u işgali sırasında ortaya çıkarıldığı iddia edilen ‘10 maddelik plan’dır. Bu plana göre güya, 50 yaşın altındaki tüm erkek Ermeniler yok edilecek ve kadınlarla kızlar da İslamiyeti kabul etmeye mecbur edilecekti.‘Plan’ İngilizlere, Osmanlılar hesabına çalışan birisi tarafından verilmişti. İngilizler, tam da o sırada, Malta adasında tutsak olarak beklettikleri Osmanlı görevlileri hakkında kanıta ihtiyaç duyuyorlardı, fakat İngilizler nedense o davada, bunu delil olarak kullanmadılar!Ermeni tezlerini her açıdan benimsemiş olan Taner Akçam, bu plana taraflı kitabında [1] yer veriyor; ancak, sadece dipnotlarda İngilizlerin belgeyi ‘şüpheli’ bulduğuna kısaca değiniyor. Bloxam ise en azından, bu ‘plan’ı ‘şüpheli ve muhtemelen sahte’ olarak tanımlıyor. [2] Gerçekte, ‘plan’ adı altında sunulanların sahteliği su götürmez.Kısaca, hiç bir ciddi tarihçi bu planı, Tanrı’nın buyruğu gibi kabullenemez, fakat Yale Üniversitesi Soykırım Çalışmaları Kürsüsü Profesörü Ben Kiernan, yakın zamanda yayınlanan Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (Yale Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2007) (Kan ve Toprak: Sparta’dan Darfur’a Dünyanın Soykırım ve Yoketme Tarihçesi) adlı kitabında tam da bunu yapıyor. Osmanlı Ermenilerinin kaderini incelediği kısa bölümün ana temeli yine bu ‘plan’dır. Kiernan, bu sahte plana dayanarak Osmanlı hükümetini Ermenileri yok etme planları yapmakla suçluyor.Suçlamanın ağırlığı göz önüne alındığında, burada olağanüstü olan, bu ‘plan’ın en azından şüpheli ve büyük olasılıkla sahte olduğunu anlamak için gelişigüzel bir sorgulamanın yeterli olduğudur; olsa olsa belki bir dipnot değeri vardır.Ermeni milli tarihçisi ve hararetli bir Ermeni propagandacısı olan Vahkan Dadrian’dan daha güvenilir bir kaynak göstermesini Ben Kiernan’dan istemek, acaba Yale Üniversitesi Yayın Kurulu’ndan hiç kimsenin aklına gelmedi mi?Sıklıkla “Görmek istemeyenler kadar kör olan bir kimse yoktur” denir. Görülüyor ki, herkes Ermenilere ne olduğunu gayet iyi biliyor ve bu konuda ne söylemek isterse söyleyebiliyor;Türkler hariç! Türkler bu tartışmanın tamamen dışında bırakılmış durumda. Barack Obama, ABD Kongresi, Avrupa Parlamentoları ve diğer başka yerlerdeki parlamento üyeleri ve hatta en son soykırım kararını onaylayan Güney Avustralya Parlamentosu üyeleri bile Türk ve Osmanlı tarihini Türklerden daha iyi biliyor. Neo Oryentalizmin bundan daha açık bir örneği olamaz! Aslında, bu parlamento üyelerinin Osmanlı tarihinin son yılları hakkında çok az şey bildiğini söylemek bile iyimser kalır. Onların Osmanlı tarihinin Ermenilerle ilgili kısmı hakkında, kendilerine Ben Kiernan, Taner Akçam veya Donald Bloxham gibi lobicilerin hap halinde sunduğundan başka hiç bir şey bilmediğini söylemek daha gerçekçi olur. Ermeni meselesinde karşı tez olarak çok az sayıda kitap ya da makalenin batı dünyası temel kültürel yayınlarının içine girmesine izin veriliyor. Batıdaki anlatımlarda yazıldığı haliyle bu konu artık tarih olmaktan çıkıp bir din bilimi halini almıştır. Adeta bir ‘kutsal veri’ imiş gibi sorgulanması yasaklanmış ve arzulanan yargıya ulaşılmasını önleyen diğer veriler kenara atılmıştır.Bu meseleyi anlamak için işimize gelen bazı bilgi ve belgeleri değil tüm bilgi ve belgeleri incelemeye ihtiyaç vardır; aksi takdirde tarih zarar görür. Sanırım, bu makalede sözünü ettiğimiz sahtekarlıkların (Batılı) yayın dünyasında nasıl yer bulduğu açıkça anlaşılıyor.Forging the past: OUP and the 'Armenian question'Jeremy Salt*In 2005 Oxford University Press published Donald Bloxham's The Great Game of Genocide. Imperialism, Nationalism and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. The first hardback edition was followed by a paperback version in 2007. The book is more of a prosecutor's brief than a balanced study of the fate of the Ottoman Armenians during the First World War, but forgery and not balance is the point of this article.The book includes nine photographs printed on glossy paper. Eight of the photographs are credited. One is not. It shows a man in an unbuttoned jacket and tie standing in front of a circle of ragged children and one apparent adult with something in his hand. The caption reads: 'A Turkish official taunting starving Armenians with bread'.Even a cursory glance is enough to show there is something wrong with this photo. One side of the man's jacket is darker than the other. A ragged line clearly runs between the two halves. The wall in the background abruptly disappears into a blank white space behind the standing man. A child lying on the ground is raising an emaciated arm. If stretched out to its full length it would fall below his knees. His scarcely visible other hand and wrist seem quite plump by comparison. The little boy sitting to the right of the standing man seems to be clutching something in his hand but it is impossible to tell what it might be.Suspicions aroused, the photograph is taken to a photographic analyst in Ankara. He is not told what the subject matter of the photograph is supposed to be. He subjects the photo to a 2400-fold pixel magnification. The pixels come up like little crosses. It takes him ten minutes to conclude that this is not a 'photograph' at all but a photographic soup, composed of bits and pieces taken from other photographs.The technical giveaway is the pixels. Were the photograph genuine they would have to be homogeneous but they are not. They are leaning in various different directions. Otherwise the analyst concludes that the man's right arm does not belong to the body. It has come from somewhere else. His right leg seems to have disappeared altogether. The boy sitting on the ground on the man's right is not clutching anything at all. The forger simply did not take enough care when cutting the paper around the fingers in the photograph from which his figure was taken.The man in the caption obviously cannot be a 'Turkish official' as there was no Turkey at the time the photo was apparently taken (i.e. during or shortly after the First World War). A similar reference to 'Turkish soldiers' appears in the caption of one of the other photographs.Having finally been told what the photograph of the standing man is supposed to be, the analyst points out the obvious, that no Ottoman memur or civil servant would be dressed in an unbuttoned jacket over a shirt with a collar and tie. He would be wearing a collarless shirt buttoned up to the neck. Almost certainly (definitely for a photograph) he would have a fez on his head, and it is hardly likely that an Ottoman memur would pose for such a photograph anyway.Furthermore, given the cumbersome equipment photographers had to carry around with them early in the 20th century, even if the photographer arrived on the scene just as this 'Turkish official' was tormenting starving children with a piece of bread he could not have taken the photograph unless the standing man and the starving children agreed to hold their poses or to reenact the tableau when he was ready.Oxford University Press had already been informed (by the writer of this article) that the 'photograph' was a forgery when Servet Hassan, the General Coordinator of the Federation of Turkish Associations in the UK followed up with a complaint in October. Responding to her protest, in an e-mail sent on October 19, Christopher Wheeler, OUP's history publisher, conceded that that the 'photograph' was a forgery. 'Existing stock' of the book had been destroyed but the 'photograph' had been retained in a new printing with the following caption:'This photograph purports to be an Ottoman [sic.] official taunting starving Armenians with bread. It is a fake, combining elements of two (or more) separate photographs: a demonstration were one needed of the propaganda stakes on both sides of the genocide issue with evidence of all sorts manipulated for latterday political purposes. The photograph was also included when the book was first published but then was believed to be genuine. It had previously been used in Gérard Chaliand and Yves Ternon's Le Genocide des Arméniens (1980), which shows that prior use is no substitute for rigorous investigation of a picture's provenance – and in the absence of clear provenance, for a minutely detailed examination of the picture itself. It is a cautionary tale for historians, many of whom are better trained in testing and using written sources than in evaluating photographic evidence. The publishers and author are grateful to have had the forgery drawn to their attention'.In a follow-up letter written on November Mr Wheeler, describing the forgery as a 'composite photograph', said OUP regarded republication of the 'photograph' with a fresh caption as 'a more effective rejoinder to the forger than silently dropping his or her photograph from the book'. Although the unknown provenance of the 'photograph' could have created suspicions, 'it is by no means uncommon for photographs from this period to lack one. And while the forgery is no masterpiece, without magnification it does not deceive the naked eye. These are not excuses for having been 'taken in' but they are mitigation'.The letter ends with a reference to forgeries going back to the Donation of Constantine and the need for historians and publishers to be vigilant. There is no mention of what could and should be done about copies of the book already sold, particularly those on the shelves of libraries around the world.The caption in the new printing slides over all the important issues. Of course, there is propaganda on 'both sides', but there is nothing on the Turkish 'side' (as far as this writer is aware) to compare with the textual and photographic forgeries manufactured on the Armenian 'side'. It is very difficult to take at face value the statement that when the book was first published the photograph 'was believed to be genuine'.Nine photographs were published. Eight were properly sourced and one was not sourced at all, not even to the Chaliand and Ternon book. This suggests that someone must have had doubts about the authenticity of this photograph (which until 2008 at least was displayed prominently in the Museum of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan. It can also be found online in the US Library of Congress – again without a source). Over and above all of this, it does not take a 'minutely detailed examination' or magnification to see that this 'photograph' is most probably and almost certainly a fake. OUP is usually meticulous in its sourcing. In his message to Servet Hassan on October 19 Mr Wheeler admits that there was no 'clear provenance' for the photograph. This implies that someone must have had misgivings. So why did the book’s editors allow this fake to go to press?Forgeries have been part of the 'Armenian question' since the 1920s, produced with the intention of proving what could not otherwise be proved. The most notorious of them is the Andonian papers, a collection of 'telegrams' and other 'documents' purporting to show that the CUP government (and especially Talat Paşa) deliberately set out to exterminate the Armenians. These were shown to be forgeries more than 20 years ago but still surface from time to time, most notably in the writings of the journalist Robert Fisk.Another 'document', appearing during the British occupation of Istanbul, is the 'ten point plan', supposedly drawn up by the CUP government sometime late in 1914 or early in 1915, according to which all male Armenians under 50 were to be exterminated, with girls and women converted to Islam.The 'plan' was handed to the British by an Ottoman functionary. Then looking for evidence against the prisoners they were holding in Malta, the British did not make use of it. Taner Akcam, a Turk who has adopted the Armenian version of history in all its essential details, utilises the plan in the text of his own tendentious book 1, observing only in a footnote that the British were 'skeptical' of its authenticity. Bloxham himself has described the 'plan' as 'dubious at best and probably a fake'.2 In fact, the 'plan' certainly is a fake.In short, no serious historian could possibly take this plan as gospel truth, but this is exactly what Ben Kiernan, an Australian who is now Professor of Genocide Studies at Yale University, does in his recent publication Blood and Soil. A World History of Genocide and Extermination from Sparta to Darfur (Yale University Press, 2007). The 'plan' is the platform for his brief examination of the fate of the Ottoman Armenians and the accusations he makes that the Ottoman government drew up a plan to exterminate them.What is extraordinary here is that it would have taken no more than a cursory check to establish that this 'plan' is suspect at least, is almost certainly a fake and is worthy of a footnote at most. Did no one at Yale University Press think of asking Ben Kiernan to come up with a better source than his only source for this accusation, Vahakn Dadrian, a committed Armenian national historian and propagandist for the Armenian cause?It is often said that there are none so blind as those who will not see. Everyone knows what happened to the Armenians, everyone has the right to say whatever they want except the Turks. They are kept out of this debate altogether. Barack Obama, members of the US Congress, members of European parliaments and parliaments elsewhere, even of the South Australian parliament, which recently passed a genocide resolution, apparently know more of Turkish and Ottoman history than the Turks do.There could hardly be a clearer example of neo-Orientalism.It would be far too much to say that the members of these parliaments know little of late Ottoman history.It would only be accurate to say that they know next to nothing of Ottoman history apart from what they have been spoon-fed by lobbyists or have read in books such as those written by Ben Kiernan, Taner Akçam or Donald Bloxham.Very few books or articles are allowed into the western cultural mainstream as a counter-narrative. The Armenian question as it has been written into the western narrative has long since passed from history into theology. It has been sacralized and history, in this instance the need to deconstruct this issue on the basis of all the known 'facts' and not just some of them, suffers as a result. This, it seems, is how forgeries such as those described in this article get into print.[1] Taner Akçam A Shameful Act - The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility (Utanılacak bir Davranış – Ermeni Soykırımı ve Türklerin Sorumluluğu) Londra; Constable and Robinson, 2007.[2] History Today (Günümüzde Tarih dergisi), yayıncısının Haziran 2005 teki ‘Rethinking the Armenian Genocide’ (Ermeni Soykırımını Yeniden Ele Almak) makalesine cevap olarak Bloxham’ın Temmuz 2005, Sayı 7, Sayfa 68 te yayınlanan cevabı.(Bu mektubu dikkatime getirdiği için Erman Şahin’e teşekkür borçluyum - Jeremy Salt.)Thanks to Jeremey Salt ....BILKENT UNIVERSITESINDE TARIH OGRETMENI JEREMY SALT'IN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS'IN ERMENI KONUSUNDA YAYIMLADIGI BIR KITAPTA KULLANILAN FOTOGRAFIN SAHTE OLDUGUNU KANITLAYAN MAKALESINI ASAGIDA SUNUYORUMAYRICAJEREMY SALT IN BU MAKALESI JEREMY'NIN LONDRA DAKI ARKADASI SERVET HANIM KANALIYLA BU HABERIN "HABERTURK " GAZETESINDE BASILMASI DA SAGLANMISTIR.

2009-10-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

GUL INVITES HISTORIANS TO STUDY 1915 EVENTS

History of Truth 8 October 2009 Speaking in an interview with Agence France Presse, or AFP on Tuesday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul urged foreign historians to join a commission to study the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.

There are all sorts of allegations about what happened a century ago. It is clear that people do not know what happened and are not able to make decisions on this matter, he said.

What we hope is that historians and archive specialists study the matter, and we are ready to accept the conclusions of the commission. To show that we are sincere, we even said that if a third country is interested, if French historians, for example, want to take part in this commission, they are welcome, he added on the eve of a visit to France.

Gul underlined that addressing historical grievances was one of the most important steps to overcome decades of enmity between Turkey and Armenia. If we keep on living the present with the problems of the past, we will only poison the future, he said, appealing for a balanced representation of history.
You must not forget that we also suffered a lot in the four corners of the world, in the Balkans, in the Caucasus. Millions of people had to migrate from the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus to Turkey, on the way, half of them were killed, he said. KAYNAK:

http://www.idizayn.com/avim/bultentekli.php?haberid=10330

2009-05-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

AN UNACCEPTABLE ACCUSATION;

ANOTHER BLACK DAY FOR the TURKISH-AUSTRALIANS

Guney Avustralya Parlamentosu Alt Meclisi 30 Nisan 2009 tarihli oturumunda, metni 3. maddede sunulan karar tasarisini kabul etmistir. Sayin Cumhurbaskanimizin ifade ettikleri gibi, Batili “muttefiklerimizce” yalnizca “Hristiyanlarin” acilarinin paylasilmasi, buna karsin halen su anda etnik temizlige ugramis, “bu aciyi yasamakta olan” bir milyon Azeri kardesimiz ile Birinci Dunya Savasi’nda Balkanlarda, Giritte, Kafkaslarda katledilmis yuzbinlerce Musluman Turk’un acilarinin hatirlanmamasi manidardir.!!!!
The following articles has been eaccepted by the South Australian Goverment on the 30th of April 2009;

"That, whereas the genocide by the Ottoman state between 1915-1923 of Armenians, Hellenes, Syrian and other minorities in Asia Minor is one of the greatest crimes against humanity, the people of South Australia and this House -

(a) join the members of the Armenian-Australian, Pontian Greek-Australian and Syrian-Australian communities in honouring the memory of the innocent men, women and children who fell victim to the first modern genocide;

(b) condemns the genocide of the Armenians, Pontian Greeks, Syrian Orthodox and other Christian minorities, and all other acts of genocide as the ultimate act of racial, religious and cultural intolerance;

(c) recognises the importance of remembering and learning from such dark chapters in human history to ensure that such crimes against humanity are not allowed to be repeated;

(d) condemns and prevents all attempts to use the passage of time to deny or distort the historical truth of the genocide of the Armenians and other acts of genocide committed during this century;

(e) acknowledges the significant humanitarian contribution made by the people of South Australia to the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide and the Pontian Genocide; and

(f) calls on the Commonwealth Parliament officially to condemn the genocide."

2009-04-29T03:36:00.000-07:00

Kanada Büyükelçimizi geri çaðýrdýk.. Peki ya Avustralya Büyükelçimiz?...April 23 2009 at 11:08 PM
Halit
Türkiye, Kanada Ermeni lobisinin düzenlediði soykýrýmý anma toplantýsýna Kanadalý Bakanlarýnda katýlmasýna tepki olarak Ottowa Büyükelçisini geri çaðýrdý. Muhtemelen birkaç hafta sonra geri yollayacaktýr. Daha önce sözde soykýrým 2004 yýlýnda Kanada parlamentosunda kabul edildiðinde de geri çaðýrmýþ sonra geri yollamýþtý. Paris Büyükelçimizi de zamanýnda soykýrým kabulüne tepki olarak geri çaðýrýp, sonra onu da geri yollamýþtýk. Kanada'nýn, Fransa'nýn ve diðerlerinin Ermeni iddialarý konusunda takýndýklarý Türkiye karþýtý tavýrdan ötürü memnuniyetsizliðimizi oralarda ki büyükelçilerimizi geri çaðýrarak belli ediyoruz. Ama, tepkimiz hep o kadarla sýnýrlý kalýyor.
O ülkeleri "eyvah biz ne yaptýk, bu denli sert tepki beklemiyorduk" türünden piþmanlýða sürükleyecek sertlikte tepkiler vermiyoruz veya veremiyoruz. Sayýn Erdoðan'ýn her fýrsatda dillendirdiði ve hatta Obama baþkan seçildiðinde ona da tavsiye ettigi "dik durma"yý biz kendimiz bir türlü beceremiyoruz. Öyle ki, birkac hafta önce Avustralya'nýn bir süredir Türkiye karþýtý faaliyetlerin odaðý olmuþ Güney Avustralya eyalet parlamentosu da ani bir kararla sözde Ermeni soykýrýmýný resmen tanýdý. Fakat Türkiye daha önce Kanada ve Fransa'ya karþý yaptýðý gibi bu sefer Kanberra Büyükelçisini geri caðýrmak geregi duymadý. Hatta geri çaðýrmak þöyle dursun son olarak Kanberra Büyükelçimizin Avustralya Dýþiþleri bakaný Stephen Smith ile birlikte 25 Nisanda ki Anzak törenlerine katýlmak üzere Türkiyeye hareket ettiklerini duyduk. iþte burada yine dönüp dolaþýp onlardan çok bizim duruþumuz önem kazanýyor. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti gercekten dik durabiliyor mu? Umarýz Türkiyemiz bu konuda gerekli adýmlarý atmýþtýr veya atýyordur. Ancak ben dik durma adýna þu an ülkemizi ziyeret etmekte olan Avustralya Dýþiþleri bakaný ile ilgili 26 Nisan tarihli gazetelerde aþaðýda ki türden bir baþlýk görmek istiyorum.

"Babacan'dan, Smith'e çok sert uyarý..."

Halit Þindi 23.04.2009

=================================================================================================== Kanada ile Ermeni soykýrýmý krizi Türkiye, Kanadada Ermeni lobisinin düzenlediði Ermeni soykýrýmýný anma gecesine Kanadalý bakanlarýn katýlmasý üzerine, Ottawa Büyükelçisi Rafet Akgünayý Ankaraya çaðýrdý Ankaranýn, ABD Baþkaný Barack Obamanýn 24 Nisanda 1915 olaylarýný soykýrým olarak niteleyip nitelemeyeceðine odaklandýðý sýrada Kanadada yaþanan bu olay endiþelerin artmasýna neden oldu. Diplomatik kaynaklardan edinilen bilgiye göre, Akgünay, önceki gün Kanadada yaþanan geliþmeler nedeniyle dün sabah saatlerinde Ankaraya geldi. Akgünayýn kapsamlý deðerlendirme ve istiþarelerde bulunmak üzere Ankaraya çaðrýldýðýný, bir süre daha Ankarada kalacaðýný ve konunun derinlemesine inceleneceðini bildiren kaynaklar, Türkiyenin Kanadaya yönelik tepkisini gerektiði þekilde ortaya koyacaðýný belirtti. Kanada, 21 Nisan 2004te parlamentosunda onayladýðý bir karar ile 1915 olaylarýný resmen soykýrým olarak tanýdý.

Kanadadaki Ermeni lobisi, bu kararýn alýnmasýnýn 5. yýldönümünde bir anma gecesi düzenledi. Edinilen bilgiye göre, Kanadalý Ermeniler Kongresinin Ottawada düzenlediði anma gecesine Kanada Göç Bakaný Jason Kenney ile birçok Kanadalý bakan katýldý. Gecede Kanada Baþbakaný Stephen Harperýn da Ermeni halkýnýn 1915te çektiði korkunç acýlara atýfta bulunan bir açýklama yapmasý üzerine geliþmelerden rahatsýz olan Ankara, protesto olarak Ottawa Büyükelçisi Akgünayý Ankaraya çaðýrdý.

Kanada Baþbakanlýk Sözcüsü Kory Teneycke, yaptýðý açýklamada, Kanada hükümetinin tutumunun yeni olmadýðýný ve bu konunun Kanada Parlamentosunda tüm partilerin desteði ile benimsenen kararlarla teyit edildiðini kaydetti. Teneycke, Pozisyonumuzun arkasýndayýz ve bu hiç kimseyi üzmeye yönelik deðildir diye konuþtu. Modern Türkiyeyi suçlamadýk Kanada Dýþiþleri Bakanlýðý ise tutumlarýnýn modern Türkiyeye yönelik olmadýðýný açýkladý. Kanada Dýþiþleri sözcülerinden Lawrence Cannon, dün akþam, Büyükelçi Akgünayýn Ankaraya dönmesinin Türkiye ile diplomatik iliþkileri etkilemesine yol açmamasýný diledi ve Türkiye bir demokrasi. NATO müttefiki Türkiye ile iyi iliþkilerimiz var dedi.

Sözcü, Türkiyenin uzun yýllardýr önemli bir ticari partner olduðuna da iþaret etti. Sözcü, ayrýca Kanadanýn Türkiye ile Ermenistan arasýndaki uzlaþma çabalarýný takdirle karþýladýðýný sözlerine ekledi. (Milliyet) http://www.network54.com/Forum/407087/message/1240488533/Kanada+B%FCy%FCkel%E7imizi+geri+%E7a%F0%FDrd%FDk..+Peki+ya+Avustralya+B%FCy%FCkel%E7imiz-...

The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Speeches In The Australian Parliament

2008-12-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

26 November 2008
2660) The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Speeches In The Australian Parliament
From: Ataman Atlas
To: J.Hockey.MP at aph.gov.au ; senator.ellison at aph.gov.au ; maxinemckewmp ; Malcolm.Turnbull.MP at aph.gov.au ; Bronwyn.Bishop.MP at aph.gov.au ; S.Crean.MP at aph.gov.au ; Julia.Gillard.MP at aph.gov.au ; Bob.Katter.MP at aph.gov.au ; senator.coonan at aph.gov.au ; senator.sterle at aph.gov.au ; senator.faulkner at aph.gov.au; Turkish Embassy; Turkish Media;.. Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2008

Dear Messers, Hockey, and Ellison,

I write to you as an Australian Citizen and a grandchild of a survivor of the Turkish Genocide, perpetrated by traitorous sections of the Armenian community and citizens of the former Ottoman Empire during the First World War.I note both of you have made speeches (in relatively recent times) in relation to the outrageous, fallacious and highly inflammatory Armenian “Genocide” allegations.
From the outset, I call both of you liars, dishonest, deceitful, cowards and men of ill - repute. I will make sure this letter and it’s contents are circulated far and wide over the internet and I would challenge you to sue me for defamation for what I am about to say.
You have misled the Australian Parliament and therefore the Australian people, in a cowardly manner, hiding behind parliamentary privilege, and in fact defaming dead men whom as we all know under law can not file suit nor seek a remedy against your outrageous lies.I need not go through both your speeches and detail each and every lie you have told the Australian people through your position of trust and responsibility via the Australian Parliament.
However, I will touch upon certain aspects of each speech, and attach copies of transcripts to this letter at the end.Starting with Mr Hockey’s speech initially where by he stated (which is also a reference made by Mr Ellison and that other disgraceful cowardly liar Mr Bob Carr under NSW Parliamentary privilege), “In 1939, Adolf Hitler addressed his battle commanders at Obersalzberg with these chilling words:I put ready my Death’s Head Units the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need.

Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?”

That entire quote is a lie and has been proven to be a lie for many many years now. In fact the person who established that as a lie and forgery, himself is an honest decent Armenian person by the name of Dr Robert John.

Details of that fact are attached at the end of this letter
....Mr Hockey goes on to state the following,“

….On the basis of the worldwide apathy to the plight of an entire generation of Armenians who were rounded up and systematically slaughtered, Hitler embarked on his own diabolical plan of extermination. Some 70 years after Hitler’s words, the Armenian community is still struggling to achieve recognition for their own genocide at the hands of the Ottoman military during World War I.

……..This is now recognised as the beginning of an official attempt by the Turkish government to exterminate its Armenian population.”First and foremost, this one paragraph is beautifully choreographed to gain maximum damage against the Turkish Government and the Turkish people, in short it is an incitement to racial hatred.

I ask Mr Hockey (who hiding behind parliamentary privilege accuses and then goes on to convict the Turkish Government and therefore it’s people of a heinous crime, the Crime of Genocide) just exactly where is the conviction against the Turkish Government or in fact against the Ottoman Government? (Which is more appropriate of course considering the Republic of Turkey was not in existence until 1923) Albeit the crime of Genocide did not exist at that time and it came into being after World War II, where exactly are the convictions against the Ottoman Government for any offence akin to Crimes Against Humanity no matter what the wording of the indictment ?
You see Mr Hockey well knows and so did Mr Carr and I would assume by now that Senator Ellison would also know, the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist after World War I and the British occupied its former capital Istanbul for approximately 3 years.

During that time, with their Armenian assistants, searched far and wide all the Ottoman Archives, Government Departments and any place they thought might hold evidence of Crimes against the Armenians.

The British had full and unfettered access to all Ottoman Government Departments and documents.The British in fact caused the arrest “WITHOUT CHARGE” of approximately 144 Ottoman officials from the leadership with a view of having them put on trial for “Outrages Against the Armenians”.

However, after searching far and wide, and asking for any evidence the French, Russians and Americans might have been holding, the British could not even reach the most basic level of proof prima facie.
All persons were released after approximately two and half years in custody from the island of Malta, WITHOUT ANY CHARGE BEING PREFERRED AGAINST ANY OF THE OTTOMAN LEADERSHIP. Now all these men are dead and can not speak for themselves. People of ill repute, such as Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison and Mr Carr can safely defame them because, and I reiterate, as we all know “DEAD MEN” cannot sue.

They cannot defend themselves against such outrageous criminal allegations without ever being afforded the Natural Justice any Civilised society would afford them, like the British did.This is Historical FACT, commonly referred to as the Malta Tribunals, (although there were no hearings conducted, and I reiterate, NOT ONE CHARGE of Outrages Against the Armenians preferred against any Ottoman Official).

This is the reason why consecutive British Governments (and dare I say in this regard Honourable) have never passed such a spurious, unjust and fallacious resolution as recognising something that never was, the alleged Armenian “Genocide”.What certain dishonest, traitorous, deceitful, criminal SECTIONS (NOT ALL) of the Armenian community could not achieve (Their fantasy of a Greater Armenia from Sea to Sea) via acts of betrayal and war against their own Government. Then later acts of terrorism they are now trying to use the deaths of thousands of innocent Armenians and TURKS in a despicable political manner, using unscrupulous, narcissistic, sociopathic politicians, the likes of Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison, and Mr Carr.

Dare I also say Ms Maxine McKew who played the “Genocide” card to defeat the former Prime Minister Mr Howard. BUT FOR her underhanded deceitful and dishonest claims of the alleged “Armenian Genocide” she WOULD NOT have won her seat, and the numbers establish that FACT.No matter what flaws Mr Howard may or may not have had he will go down in History as an Honourable politician and person who never pandered to the treacherous section of the Armenian Diaspora for a political win at ANY COST, unlike the grubby Ms Mckew.There are many more FACTUAL ERRORS in Mr Hockey’s speech where by he has misled Parliament and therefore the Australian people which can be pointed out but I doubt any of you would be interested in that and I do not intend on re producing major works just to re – establish HISTORICAL FACT. I will address one last issue, which Mr Hockey touched upon and that is section 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.

The Republic of Turkey is a sovereign nation, which won it’s sovereignty after a long and hard war at great cost in Turkish lives.

The laws of the Republic of Turkey are for the TURKS themselves to decide upon not dishonest, deceitful, narcissistic, sociopathic politicians from other nations such as Mr Hockey to dictate. All nations have various laws relating to defamation and although far from perfect that Section 301 is similar in terms of defamation laws found in the vast majority of nations throughout the world. In fact this is what the United Nations had to say about this issue;-"(The) United Nations has not approved or endorsed a report labelling the Armenian experience as Genocide." Farhan Haq, U.N. spokesman, October 5th, 2000. On June 4-7, 2005, at a Florida Atlantic University genocide conference, Juan Mendez, Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General of the United Nations, was criticized for calling the Armenians' genocide an "event." This article tells us that the Argentinian "responded that since the UN has not officially recognized the genocide, he was not allowed to call it that."

As reader Conan put it: "The UN is the organ that has established the Genocide Convention. If even such an institution doesn’t recognize the Armenian genocide, Turkey has the right to punish the so called Armenian genocide as libel. That is the right of every nation." I would ask Mr Hockey and others of his ilk that would sell their souls to the devil for personal gain to prove his allegations that, “

……Around 1½ million Armenians were murdered during the Armenian genocide out of an estimated total Armenian population of just 2½ million people….

The intention of the Ottomans was the complete obliteration of not only the Armenian nation but any memory of the Armenian people as well
……….The mere existence of Armenians in Turkey was officially denied
…..But there is simply no other word for what happened to the Armenian people of Turkey. They were indeed the victims of an act designed to destroy an entire race…”

What is in fact “divisive and offensive” is the lies told by such dishonest politicians the likes of My Hockey and his ilk. “Australian people [do in fact, my addition to Mr Hockey’s words] deplore this sort of racism and barbarity” that Mr Hockey has perpetrated under the protection of Parliamentary privilege abusing his position of trust and responsibility given to him by the entire Australian Nation not just a certain Criminal section of the Armenian community.

“This country [Australia] has [indeed] prospered though the immigration of people from countless nations, including Armenia” [AND TURKEY].

I would urge Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison, Mr Carr, Ms McKew and others of their ilk, to prove, that “It was the intentional attempted obliteration of an entire people” by the Ottoman Government. Otherwise, I call them dishonest and deceitful liars. Or in the alternative forget passing a resolution but actually take the Republic of Turkey to an International Tribunal to determine this matter ONCE and FOR ALL.

Why is there no Government in the world brave enough to take the Republic of Turkey to an International Tribunal over this issue. The Republic of Turkey has formally stated that it would accept any such attempt with favour and waive the rights of standing, whereby they would stand in the steed of the former Ottoman Government as the Successor State and further still waive the right of retrospectivity in relation to the offence of “Genocide”. If dishonest Politicians such as Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison, Mr Carr and Ms McKew are genuinely interested in the fate of some thousands of innocent Armenian and TURKISH victims why not pursue a proper and fair hearing on the matter and seek restitution for what few survivors of this alleged “genocide” and their families that are left ?You see the reason behind that is quite clear the British established it some 80 odd years ago, because THERE IS NO EVIDENCE of any sort of pre planned, predetermined, executed plan by the central Ottoman Government to murder, exterminate, or wipe out, the entire or even a section of it’s former Armenian citizens.I would put the challenge to all those dishonest politicians to either prove their fallacious allegations or APOLOGISE to the Australian Nation for misleading them, and further still, apologise to the Republic of Turkey and all the Turkish people around the world, some of whom (approximately 150,000 odd) living right here in Australia.

There is much more that I could say in relation to this matter. However as per usual, I much like the dead men of the Ottoman leadership have no right of reply. Further still, there is NOT ONE HONEST politician in the whole of Australia that will stand up and put forward the WHOLE body of evidence in relation to this issue.
Any evidence that the Turkish side would like to put forward will be stifled, ignored, and brushed aside; I would inquire as to the reason or motivation for this?Could it stem all the way back to Pope Urban and his call for the first Crusades against the Seljuk Turks?
When Pope Urban in a more honest and open manner stated,“Urban II's sermon proved the most effective single speech in European history, as he summoned the attending nobility and the people to wrestle the Holy Land from the hands of the Seljuk Turks:

I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it meant also for those who are absent.

Moreover, Christ commands it. [1]The chronicler Robert the Monk, quotes Urban II as saying that[...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber.

Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.Within Fulcher of Chartres account of pope Urban’s speech, there was a promise of remission of sins for who ever took part in the crusade.

All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested. O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ! With what reproaches will the Lord overwhelm us if you do not aid those who, with us, profess the Christian religion!

Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago.

Let those who for a long time, have been robbers, now become knights.

Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians.

Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward.

Let those who have been wearing themselves out in both body and soul now work for a double honor. Behold! on this side will be the sorrowful and poor, on that, the rich; on this side, the enemies of the Lord, on that, his friends.

Let those who go not put off the journey, but rent their lands and collect money for their expenses; and as soon as winter is over and spring comes, let hem eagerly set out on the way with God as their guide.[3]
1. Fulcher of Chartres' account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).
2. Robert the Monk's account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).
3. Fulcher of Chartres account of Urban's speech, Urban II: Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech (available as part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook).

At least Pope Urban did not hide his innate hatred of the Turks like the dishonest Politicians Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison, Mr Carr, and Ms McKew he was honourable enough to let everyone know how he felt.

What Mr Hockey and his rag tag band of alleged “Genocide” cronies are doing is in fact an underhanded way of continuing the Crusades by stealth, it is little wonder that Turks and in fact most Muslims feel marginalised and disenfranchised here in Australia.For far too long the innate politeness and courtesy of the Turkish race has stopped them from putting forward their case in strong terms. Even to this very day, the ineffective, apathetic Turkish Government does very little if at all anything to set right this outrageous fallacious allegation of the “Armenian Genocide”.

Other than some Turkish Politicians which are no better then their Australian or US counterparts beat their chests, make a few rhetorical statements in the Turkish Parliament that achieve nothing. Successive Turkish Governments have been the laughing stock of both Europe and it’s own people. Yet again, successive Turkish Governments have not been able to look after it’s own people in Turkey let alone orchestrate some grand conspiracy to hide and deny historical facts. The Turkish Government has a lot to learn from Israel, in particular the former valiant and courageous Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and her orders to commence Operation “Wrath of God.” I commend and admire her courage and dedication to her own people, if successive Turkish Governments had taken any note or any sort of example from her Government many more innocent Turkish lives could have been saved.

Therefore, regardless of what the likes of Mr Hockey may try to allude to it is not the Turkish Government that denies this heinous allegation, which would be akin to me calling Mr Hockey a paedophile without the requisite evidence; it is the Turkish people and race.We will no longer stand by whilst our collective race is accused and convicted of such a heinous crime in political forums without us ever having the opportunity to reply. Perhaps it is time that the Turks throughout the world take a page out of the Armenian terrorists’ handbook.

Of course I talk about the Murders of Mr Sarik Arayak and Mr Engin Sever the Consul General and his Security Attaché in Sydney (December 1980) and the bombing of the Turkish Consulate in Melbourne (Monday, 24 November, 1986).
Clearly, those events have drawn the attention of politicians, or was it the case that they were only Muslim Turks so it doesn’t really matter. Much like the hundreds and thousands if not millions of Turks murdered by the Armenians during the material times in the Eastern part of Turkey.

NOT ONCE are those innocent victims of Armenian atrocities ever mentioned by any WESTERN POLITICIAN. Clearly, two wrongs don’t make a right but two wrongs don’t make a “genocide” either.If the Turks were to carry out acts of terrorism in this nation it would be expected and immediately labelled Muslim Terrorists quite conveniently by the biased western media before the smoke had disappeared from the rubble. Much innocent blood has been spilt and will continue to spill over this issue, whilst people in positions of power and trust like Mr Hockey continue to lie and perpetrate pure and utter propaganda.

Dishonest politicians like Mr Hockey, Mr Ellison, Mr Carr, and Ms McKew would be better off concentrating on the woes of the Australian people first and foremost before meddling in conflicts dating back decades if not centuries, that occurred in places some thousands of kilometres away and which they know very little, if at all anything about.If Australian politicians want to talk about genocide, they should first recognise the fact that WHITE AUSTRALIA committed genocide on the Indigenous people of Australia first and foremost.

In fact, continuing all the way up and including the 1970’s well after the offence of Genocide came into International Law. A simple sorry to the “Stolen Generation” is far from adequate. If the facts of what WHITE AUSTRALIA did to the indigenous population were to be applied to the elements of the offence for genocide in my very humble opinion it could well be established unlike the fallacious Armenian “Genocide” allegations.

The successive Australian Governments did in fact have the intention to destroy the Aboriginal culture and society. I ask you all when were Aboriginal people recognised as human beings here in Australia and allowed to vote on a National level? (The answer of course is the last two states to give Aboriginals the basic human right to vote was Western Australia in 1962 and Queensland in 1965).

Compare the positions Armenians held within the Ottoman Government and Military and compare how WHITE AUSTRALIA has and continues to treat it’s Aboriginal population? The established fact that Western Australia jails far more Black people than what the Apartheid regime in South Africa ever did during it’s term. The fact that Aboriginal people could go and fight and die in World Wars I and II for King and Country yet they weren’t even recognised as citizens and could not vote ?

These are FACTS, which white Australian politicians conveniently forget to mention. I reiterate we will no longer sit back and be spectators to this “Genocide” circus our case will be heard, and the likes of Mr Hockey and his cronies will go down in historical infamy.I will end my letter by quoting from their Honours of the Victorian Supreme Court of Criminal Appeal in R v Demirian [1989] VR 97 at 123-124;In a joint judgment, McGarvie and O'Bryan JJ said:"The type of activity engaged in by the applicant and others is rare in this country but terrorist acts are commonplace in the country from whence the applicant emigrated to Australia. Unless courts in this country are vigilant in imposing condign sentences for such conduct evil-minded persons might seek to emulate this conduct. The conduct of the applicant in conspiring with others to endanger life and cause serious injury to property by detonating an explosive substance beneath the Consulate brought shame to this country when the bomb exploded.

The Turkish nation is a friendly power and members of the Turkish community now assimilated into Australian society were affronted by this evil deed. The heinousness of the crime is accentuated by the fact that the applicant abused the sanctuary this country offered him.

When a crime of such notoriety and heinousness is committed in the name of a political cause this Court is not required to fix a minimum term.

The political nature of the offence and its seriousness render the fixing of such a term inappropriate.

A sentence imposed in these circumstances should be exceptional to mark the seriousness with which the crime is viewed and therefore no minimum term should be fixed." (1988 33 A Crim R at p 474)58 Tadgell J agreed, in relation to that aspect of the appeal (at p 481).I borrow from their Honours comments in suggesting after the speeches made by Mr Bob Carr, Ms Maxine Mckew, Mr Hockey and Mr Ellison, it has “brought shame to this country” on each and every occasion.

Especially when these speeches are made “in the name of a political cause” where criminal, allegations are made without any proof and without the Turkish case ever being heard, or the Turkish people ever being afforded any natural justice whatsoever.

Ataman AtlasAustralian CitizenGrandchild of a Survivor of the Turkish Genocide

Related Posts:
Letter To Hon Joe Hockey MP, Australia: Armenian Claim
Australia To Recognise Armenian Genocide
Letter To Hon. Joe Hockey, Federal MP, Australia: Genocide Allegations

Editor's Note:Published location of this letter has also been separately forwarded to:J.Hockey.MP at aph.gov.au ; senator.ellison at aph.gov.au ; maxinemckewmp ; Malcolm.Turnbull.MP at aph.gov.au ; Bronwyn.Bishop.MP at aph.gov.au ; S.Crean.MP at aph.gov.au ; Julia.Gillard.MP at aph.gov.au ; Bob.Katter.MP at aph.gov.au ; senator.coonan at aph.gov.au ; senator.sterle at aph.gov.au ; senator.faulkner at aph.gov.au Dear Members Of Parliament, AustraliaPlease also feel free to email the copy of your responses to me directly at and I'll be happy to publish them here, in full, as soon as I receive them.Kind RegardsSeda Goulizar (Editor)UK http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com
addthis_url='http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/11/2660-fallacious-armenian-genocide.html'; addthis_title='2660) The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Speeches In The Australian Parliament'; addthis_pub='LaraKaplan';

Labels: Ataman ATLAS, Australia
2 comments:
A Turkish Accountant From Sydney said...
Armenia: 1 Turkey: 0Well Done To Armenians who produced a Lawyer and a Member of Australian Parliament, Joe has also served as a Minister 4 times.Joe Hockey (Hokeidonian) is an Australian Member of Parliament with an Armenian descent.This should tell a lot about the consequences of high number of Turks in Turkish Coffee Houses in Auburn, Redfern, Eskinville, and the other high number of Turkish dole bludgers in Sydney or Australia(IP Addess Logged)
01 December, 2008
Perth, WA, Australia said...
Majority of Australian Public do have more faith in used car salesman than politicians. So do I.Hockey and Ellison all have hidden agendas, means personal benefits than the public or the nation in general.You remember what Ex US President Harry Truman says: *****************************"Piano Playing To Be Much More Honorable Than Current Politicians" *****************************'It doesn't matter how big a ranch ya' own, or how many cows ya' brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna depend on the weather.' - Harry Truman.When President Truman retired from office in 1952, his income was substantially a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year.Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, 'You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale.'Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, 'I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.'We now see past presidents, have found a new level of success in cashing in on the presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.I think good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, 'My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference. I, for one, believe the piano player job to be much more honorable than current politicians.'
03 December, 2008
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/11/2660-fallacious-armenian-genocide.html

Bu topraklar sizin! Siz, Malazgirt Savasi’ndan bu yana degil, tam 10 bin yildir bu topraklardasiniz.

2008-12-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

"Kuklalar, guclu kukla oynaticilarin ellerinde, ancak iplerini kendi kendilerine cekerek oynamalari gulunc bir trajedidir.."
...............

Nasilsa ekonomik kriz ezmek uzere, hazir Turk halkinin ilgisi de ekonomiye odaklanmisken bir acele Ermenilerden ozur dileyiverelim firsatciligi ile bugun aydinliklari (!) ancak kendilerinden menkul bildik (!) bir takim kollari sivadi.

Tarihi inkar ederek mi ozur diliyorlar?

Avusturya Cumhurbaskanligi, tarafindan 1984’te Bilim ve Sanat Onur Madalyasi ile birlikte profesorluk payesi verilen PROF. DR. ERICH FEIGL artik yok (d.1931 - o.27.01.2007).

Asagida kitabinin on sozunun tercumesini (bir kez daha) gonderiyorum. Zamaninda, milletce "Uluslararasi arenada BIZE BIZI VE HAKLARIMIZI" anlatan Prof. Dr. Erich Feigl'e (Bu baglamda Prof. Justin McCarthy'e, tarihci Norman Stone ve tarihci Stanford Shaw gibi uluslararasi akademisyenlere) gereken ilgiyi gosterseydik, bu ucuz kuklalar bugun "ozur dileyelim" diyerek ortalara dusemezdi.

Kimileri bu listeye cok iyi Turkce konusan Andrew Mango'yu da ekler, ancak 'bana gore' Mango sadece Turk degil baska kaynaklara (!) da hizmetle mukelleftir. Bu arada kendi tarihcilerimize bile ne kadar sahip ciktigimiz da tartisilir ya neyse.

Bize, bizi anlatan Prof. Dr. Erich Feigl bir konusmasinda su carpici oneriyi dile getirmis:‘Soykirim konusunda tartisma olmaz. Bu kabul edilemez. Ermenilerin iddialarini bir kez tanidiniz mi arkasindan tazminat ve toprak talepleri gelir. Bunu kesinlikle yapmayin. Soykirimi sakin tartismayin!’

sozlerini soyle surdurmustur:‘Rica ediyorum, Avrupa Birligi’ne teslim olmayin. Son gelisimden sonra sunu gordum ki gelismeniz gercekten muhtesem. Inanin Avusturya’da bizim boyle bir universitemiz yok.’ (Prof. Feigl, panelin yapildigi Istanbul Teknik Universitesi’ni kastediyor.)

Turk toplumunu ‘Mahcup davranmayin’ diye dostca uyaran Prof. Feigl, 1915 olaylarini derinlemesine arastiran ve konuyu en ufak ayrintisina kadar bilen bir insanin guveni icinde konusmasini su carpici sozlerle noktalamisti:

‘Bu topraklar sizin! Siz, Malazgirt Savasi’ndan bu yana degil, tam 10 bin yildir bu topraklardasiniz. Unutmayin ki bu, Catalhoyuk’teki kazilarda elde edilen bulgularla kanitlandi.’

VE kimsenin 'ilgilenmedigi' O kitabin onsozu..(*)Saygilarimla
Caglayan
Ozel bir onsoz I

Prof.Dr. Erich Feigel

Ein Mythos des Terrors : armenischer Extremismus: seine Ursachen und Hintergrunde
(A Myth of Terror - Armenian Extremism: Its causes and its historical context)Freilassing : Ed. Zeitgeschichte, 1986.

"Deliriyor musun" - "Yasamaktan yorgun mu dustun?"

Bu sozler, Ermeni terorizminin tarihsel kosullari ve nedenlerine iliskin bir kitap yazmaya calistigimi duyan arkadas ve dostlarimin sozleridir.

Nicin boyle tehlikeli bir konu secmistim?

Bu Turklerle Ermenilerin kendi aralarinda (uzerinde) calismalari gereken bir konu degil miydi? Tum dostlarim, projemi tehlikeli hatta tehditkar bulmustu ve anladim ki, bu korku ve dusunceler, Ermeni terorizminin arkasindaki tarihsel gercegin simdiye kadar tarafsiz bir gozle incelenmesini engellemisti.

Insanlar, misilleme yapilmasindan korktuklari ve bu nedenle, meydani tumu ile bu konuya iliskin yazini eylemsel olarak denetimleri almis 'vahsetin pervasiz avukatlarina' birakmislardi. Gercekte, Ermeni sorununu veya Ermeni terorizmini tartisan yazarlar, terore karsi anlayisli olunmasini istemekteydiler. Bu, tipki yaptiklari bir saldiridan sonra, sorumlulugu ustlenen terorist orgutlerin iddialarina benzemektedir.

Bu "sorumluluk" ile (veya daha dogrusu, bu soylu kavramin saptirilmasi ile) onlar, bir tur "Adalet" buyusu yaratarak guc kazanmakta gibi gorunmektedirler. Bu yasallastirma ile Azrail rolu oynamakta ve kendilerini desteklemekten kacinanlari vurmakta, suphede olanlara tehdit mektuplari gondermektedirler.

Azrail rolu oynayan sadece insanlar degildir, keza filmler ve yayinlar da vardir. Terentius Maurus I.S. 200'lu yillarda HABENT SUA FATA LIBELLI "Kitaplar Azrail rolu oynar" adli siirini yazmistir. Yukaridaki bahsi gecen siirinde, acikca "PRO CAPTU LECTORIS" yani "Okuyucunun anlayisina gore" demektedir.

Bu kitabin Almanca basimindan sonra, bu baglamda iki anahtar deneyime sahip oldum. Bunlardan birincisi, Orta Avrupa'nin Ermeni Ortodoks (Gregorian) Kilisesinin cok yuksek rutbeli bir temsilcisi Katolikler (Mekhitaristler) ile yapilan bir toplantida yuzume karsi, "Kitabinizda, olen Ermenilere karsi degersiz Turkleri savunmaya nasil cesaret ettiniz!!" demisti. Ben dehsete kapilip, sozunu dogru anlayip anlamadigimi sordugumda, daha siddetli bir ifade ile "Evet, degersiz Turkler!" diye karsilik verdi.

Ikinci soru bana, 14 Nisan 1987 tarihinde, Sosyalist Partinin (AZ) Avusturya Merkez Organinda (daha cok bir dergi duzeyinde) Anette Hoss adli bir kadin tarafindan soruldu: "Hristiyan olarak, Muslumanlari mi savunmaktaydim?" (Bu kitabin odak savlari ile ilgili tek bir soz etmedigi uzun tartismasinin daha baslangicinda) kesin bir anlatimla sunlari soylemekteydi: "I. Dunya Savasi sirasinda, Turkiye'de yasayan Ermenilere soykirim uygulandigi bir cok kitapta resimlendirilmis ve dunya kamuoyu tarafindan kabul edilmistir"

Simdi anliyoruz ki dunya kamuoyu tarafindan kabul edilen her sey "dogru" olmalidir.

Insanlik, bu "kamuoyunun" ne oldugunu, en azindan Kopernick'in "Dunyanin Gunesin cevresinde dondugunu" kanitlamasindan beri bilinmektedir. Yoksa, "Dunya kamuoyu bu gercegi anlamamis midir? Bununla birlikte, soylenti uzun bir surecte gercege aykiri olsa da, hatta soylenti cok yaniltici da olsa gerceklerden ustun olamaz. Bu kitabin Almanca basimindan sonra ortaya cikan deneyimler, bazi diger gelismeler, dost ve arkadaslarimin gorusleri beni, kitabin yeni bir nushasini, son olaylarin zorunlu kildigi kimi ekler ve onemsiz degisIkliklerle Ingilizce olarak yeniden yayimlamaya yoneltti.

Karsilastigim ilk Turk/Ermeni gerilimi, uzun yillar once Orta ve Uzakdogu dinsel topluluklarina iliskin belgesel filmlerden birini cekerken ortaya cikti. Antelias'in sIk Beyrut varoslarinda yasayan Katolik Sis Ermenilerinin onde gelenlerinden biri ile bulusmustuk. Kendisi buyuk bir ciddiyetle, Turklerin iki milyon Ermeni'yi dogradigini soyledi. Ve ben bu kutsal adamin sozlerini cok ciddi olarak kabul ettim ve uzun yillar dusuncelerimi onun sozlerine dayandirdim.

Zaman gectikce giderek dunyanin pek cok yerini gordum. Kendime cok iyi egitim gormus Ermeni ve Turk arkadaslar edindim.

Uzerinde calistigim konular asla 'Ermeni sorunu' ile dogrudan ilintili degildi, ancak Anadolu'da, tum Yakindogu'da sayisiz film projelerimde, Istanbul'da Van'da, Bagdat'ta, Tahran'da ve hatta ABD'de bu sorunla karsilasmam da kacinilmazdi. Hemen ayirdina vardim ki, Turkiye'den (nispeten) uzaklastikca sozcuklerin ve argumanlarin siddeti artmaktaydi. Turkiye'de yasayan veya zamanin bir bolumu Istanbul ve Avrupa arasinda gecirenler(Ermeniler) daha ilimli ve anlayisli konusuyorlardi. Rio veya Los Angeles'te yasayan ve yasamlari boyunca hic Turk gormemis olanlar (Ermeniler) daha ofkeli ve tek-yanli idiler.

Benim ise konuya iliskin ilgim, her saniye degismekte idi. Viyana'da Prinz Eugen Caddesindeki Turk Elciliginin onunde bir bomba patladigini duydum. Bu patlamada Turk Calisma ve Sosyal Isler Atasesi Erdogan Ozen yasamini yitirmisti. Erdogan Ozen'i (*2) cok yakinda taniyordum.

Caliskan ve kendini isine adamis bir isciydi. Onun isi, Avusturya'daki Turk iscilerine yardimci olmak ve onlarin sorunlari ile ilgilenmekti. O bu gorevlerini ustaca ve bilincli olarak yerine getirdi. Fakat, bundan baska bir sey daha vardi: O gunlerde onbir, oniki yasinda olan oglu Murat ile konusurken gorurdum onu cogu kez. Gozlerinde onu cocuguna ve esi Monika'ya baglayan (buyuk) bir sevgi vardi.

Erdogan Ozen, I. Dunya savasindan cok sonra dunyaya gelmisti ve dolayisiyla kendisinin 1915'deki bir cok Ermeni ve Musluman'in yasamina mal olan trajik olaylarla ilgisi yoktu.

Bunun otesinde, kendisi ile olan arkadasligima ve yaptigi her seyi bildigime dayanarak, sunu kesinlikle soyleyebilirim ki Erdogan Ozen yasadigi gunlerde, kendisinden yardim isteyen veya baskiya ugrayan Ermenilere de yardim etmisti.

Olumu ile ilgili haberleri duydugum anda, olanaklarim dahilinde bir seyler yapmaya karar vermistim. Konuyu iyice arastirip, cok sayida kisiyle konustuktan sonra, bu "Teror Efsanesi" (Myth of Terror) ile ilgili bir dizi film yaptim ve bu kitabi yazdim. Bu kitabin buyuk bir bolumu, film calismalarimdan alinan resimlerden olusmaktadir.

Bu kitabin konusu sozcugun tam anlami ile gercek bir "efsanedir..". Bunun icindeki kimi seyler kurgu ve duslem urunudur, kimi seyler ise oykulestirilmistir. Ayni zamanda da teror eylemlerinden ve sonuclarindan goreceginiz canli,etkin dehset verici sonuclaridir.

Gunumuzde, tarihciler ve yorumcular, Ermenileri 1915 yilindaki trajik sIkintilara ugramak zorunda birakan ve ayni bicimde bir cok Musluman'i da hastalik, sIkinti ve olume goturen kosullari anlamak icin ya cok az , ya da hic caba harcamamaktadirlar. Hic kimse en az Ermeni kardesleri kadar aci ceken Turklerden soz etmemektedir.

(devam edecek..)

*1 2005 yilinda tarafimdan tercume edilmistir.)

*2 Cevirenin notu:
Erdogan OZEN20 Haziran 1984Viyana / Avusturya

Turkiye'nin Viyana Buyukelciligi Calisma Atasesi Erdogan OZEN, otomobiline yerlestirilen bombanin patlamasi sonucu oldu. Olayi, "Ermeni Devrimci Ordusu" adli orgut ustlendi.
http://www.akilcagi.com/2008/12/16/ozur-dileme-heveslilerine-i/

Armenians walk over Turkish Flag!

2008-11-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

A NATION SHOULD SHAME ON!

Turks never walk over any flag such as shown on the left in Erivan/Armenia at the formal event..

WHAT A CONTRAST!

Türk Bayrağına Çirkin Saldırı
Ermenistan’ın başkenti Erivan’da sözde Ermeni soykırımı resmi törenlerle anıldı. Resmi törende bu kez Erivan yönetimi bir değişiklik yaptı:
Tören alanınaTürk bayrağı serildi. 10 binlerce Ermeni Ay yıldızlı bayrağımızın üzerine basarak geçti.

...meeting with ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Australia, His Excellency N. Murat Ersavci...,

2008-11-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

by: http://ayfaustralia.org/news.php?extend.256 ( Armenian youth of Australia)

"...the Armenian National Committee of Australia declared that:‘The meeting was a success. Although the Ambassador rejected our letter, it was clear to the Turkish representative that the Armenian Diaspora is united in its outrage at Dink’s murder and the continued denial of the Armenian Genocide."

on Saturday 27 January 2007 - 14:47:23
A delegation of Armenian-Australian community leaders including His Eminence Archbishop Aghan Baliozian Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church, representatives of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of Australia and Mr. Varant Meguerditchian, of the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC of Australia) recently met with Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey in Australia, His Excellency N. Murat Ersavci, to convey the Armenian-Australian community's outrage at the recent murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Mr Hrant Dink.

Editor of the Istanbul based ‘Agos’ newspaper, Dink was an advocate for freedom of speech, having repeatedly criticised Turkey for its mistreatment of ethnic minorities and Turkey’s continued denial of the Armenian Genocide.

After countless death threats, Dink was gunned down as a result of extremist behaviour fostered by Turkey’s political system.Ambassador Murat Ersavci refused to accept, after reading, a letter presented to him by the Armenian community delegation condemning article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code [defined as insulting Turkishness].

The Ambassador stated that article 301 was an internal matter which did not concern the Armenian Diaspora and further suggested that the Armenian Diaspora abandon its fight for recognition of the Armenian Genocide as it was harming relations between the neighbour nations.

In response, the Armenian-Australian community leaders emphasised to the Ambassador, that Turkey’s political system had moulded its society into one that encouraged racism and nationalistic behaviour ultimately leading to Hrant Dink’s murder.

The Armenian community representatives reiterated their demand that Turkey abolish article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, bring the conspirators behind the murder to justice and to accept responsibility for the Genocide of the Armenians in order to normalise relations between Turkey and Armenia.In a joint statement after the meeting, the Diocese of the Armenian Church in Australia and the Armenian National Committee of Australia declared that:‘The meeting was a success. Although the Ambassador rejected our letter, it was clear to the Turkish representative that the Armenian Diaspora is united in its outrage at Dink’s murder and the continued denial of the Armenian Genocide.’

During the last days of the Ottoman Empire the ‘Young Turk’ Government implemented a policy of Genocide upon its Christian Armenian population. As a result, up to 1.5million Armenian men, women and children lost their lives between 1915 and 1922.
The Republic of Turkey continues to deny responsibility of the Armenian Genocide. "
http://ayfaustralia.org/news.php?extend.256

ALLEGATION AGAIN....Our Armenian friends never stop!

2008-11-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS CONTINUES in AUSTRALIA !!!...

(Details also:
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2008/11/2647-turkish-australians-no-need-to.html )

Sydney Commemorates Armenian Genocide
http://ayfaustralia.org/news.php?extend.261

on Thursday 26 April 2007 - 11:17:16

SYDNEY: An overflowing Willoughby Town Hall witnessed keynote speaker Dr. Panayiotis Diamadis reveal the historic humanitarian deeds of Australians during the Armenian Genocide of 1915, at Sydney’s Armenian Genocide Commemoration Evening on Tuesday 24 April.

Dr. Diamadis, a Doctor of Philosophy in the Political Study of Genocide Studies, exposed to the 1000 guests, including Genocide survivors, in attendance, eyewitness accounts of the Armenian Genocide by Australian Prisoners Of War in Turkey, and the subsequent Australian relief effort for victims of the Genocide.“The eyewitness accounts of Australian World War I POWs stored at the Australian National Archives remains as undeniable evidence of the Armenian Genocide and the crimes committed by the Young Turk Government,” Mr. Varant Meguerditchian, President of the Armenian National Committee of Australia, commented.

“The humanitarian efforts of charitable Australians, as part of the Armenian Relief Fund lay testament to the kind generosity of the Australian public,” he added. “We must never allow for this generosity and goodwill to be forgotten.”Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Australia and New Zealand, Archbishop Aghan Baliozian led a long list of dignitaries who attended the evening to help commemorate the 92nd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide; when during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, the ‘Young Turk’ Government implemented a policy of Genocide upon its Christian Armenian population. As a result, up to 1.5million Armenian men, women and children lost their lives between 1915 and 1922.

The Republic of Turkey continues to deny responsibility of the Armenian Genocide.Federal Parliamentary representatives in attendance included Senator Maurice Payne, who represented the Prime Minster of Australia, the Honourable John Howard; and Ms Maxine McKew, who was representing the Leader of the Federal Opposition, Mr. Kevin Rudd.

The Premier of New South Wales, the Honourable Morris Iemma was represented by his Deputy, the Honourable John Watkins MP; while the Leader of the Opposition of New South Wales, Mr. Barry O’Farrell was present, flanked by colleagues including Ms Jillian Skinner and Ms Gladys Berejiklian; the latter being the first Australian parliamentarian of Armenian heritage.Mr. Watkins and Mr. O’Farrell were unanimous in their appeal to the Australian Federal Government to follow their lead at State level in New South Wales, by properly recognising the atrocities committed against the Armenians in 1915 as Genocide, and calling on Turkey’s modern day leadership to do similarly by facing up to their past.The Honourable Joe Hockey MP stated in his address to the gathered: “My commitment to have Australia to properly recognise the Armenian Genocide is unwavering.”
He added: “We cannot let 100 years pass without true global recognition; without Turkish government recognition.”ANC Australia Communications Officer, Mr. Haig Kayserian, said the community was “encouraged” by the support shown by Mr. Hockey and his parliamentary colleagues in advancing the Armenian Genocide recognition efforts at Federal level.

“The Australian Federal Government must properly and emphatically condemn acts such as the Armenian Genocide to ensure they are not repeated in the future,” said Mr. Kayserian.

The 92nd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide Commemoration Evening included a tribute to the life of Turkey-based Armenian Genocide and human rights advocate, Mr. Hrant Dink, whose 52-year life was tragically cut short in January 2007 when he was murdered outside his Istanbul office.

http://ayfaustralia.org/

ANC AUSTRALIA CONGRATULATES ABCon Thursday 22 February 2007 - 14:38:16
Armenian National Committee of Australia Inc.

The Peak Public Affairs Committee of the Armenian-Australian Community259 Penshurst Street, Willoughby NSW 2068 ~ PO Box 768, Willoughby NSW 2068Tel: (02) 9419 8264 ~ Fax: (02) 9411 8898Email: info@anc.net.au

ANC AUSTRALIA CONGRATULATES ABCSYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia has congratulated ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program on achieving a Gold World Medal for their 2006 report on outspoken Turkish author and human rights activist, Orhan Pamuk at the New York Television Festival.The report, by Middle East Correspondent David Hardaker, highlighted Turkish national Pamuk’s challenge to his government to face up to the Genocide committed against Armenians in 1915.It was this same challenge for justice, which recently led to the tragic murder of Istanbul-based Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink.Nobel Prize-winner Pamuk, on whom the winning report was based, fled Turkey following Dink’s shooting in fear of his own life.ANC Australia’s letter to ABC Foreign Correspondent read: “ANC Australia is pleased that responsible Australian reporting of Turkey’s denialist regime against the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide has been rewarded on the international stage.”“Anti-Democratic policies, such as the Armenian Genocide Denial of the Turkish State, must be highlighted by the media. On behalf of the Armenian-Australian community, we thank you for fulfilling your ethical responsibility with your award-winning report and extend our collective congratulations.”[end]
To congratulate ABC Foreign Correspondent, please use the following contact details:ABC Foreign CorrespondentGPO Box 9994 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia+61 (0)2 8333 4754mailto:4754foreign2@your.abc.net.au

http://ayfaustralia.org/news.php?extend.258
Diamadis Confirmed As Keynote Speaker for April 24on Monday 16 April 2007 - 12:47:40

SYDNEY: Sydney-born scholar, Dr. Panayiotis Diamadis has been confirmed as the keynote speaker for the Armenian Genocide Commemoration Evening to be held on Tuesday 24 April, 2007 at the Willoughby Town Hall.
The Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee announced that Dr. Diamadis will present a unique address to the community and attending guests titled; ‘Australians and the Armenian Genocide’.“It is an honour to have a Genocide scholar of Dr. Diamadis’ capacity attending this year’s commemoration ceremony as keynote speaker,” Armenian National Committee of Australia President, Mr. Varant Meguerditchian said.

“His studies linking Australia to the Armenian Genocide relief effort must be experienced by all interested.”Dr. Diamadis was born in 1971 and is a University of Sydney graduate.
He has completed a Bachelor of Arts, a Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary), a Master of Arts and A Doctor of Philosophy in the Political Science of Genocide Studies. Dr. Diamadis has been an educator in the secondary and tertiary sectors for eleven years.He is currently teaching Genocide Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney; Ancient and Modern History at St Andrew's Cathedral School; and Greek Language and Anatolian History at the Workers' Education Association - Sydney.Dr. Diamadis has published extensively on issues in Australian history and Genocide, and has lectured in Australia, Greece and England; the latter as a guest of the Gomidas Institute.
http://ayfaustralia.org/news.php?extend.259

2008-05-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

Pro-Turkish Comments from mainly non- Turkish intellectuals (4) [ for Nancy Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution]

2008-05-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

Turks and Armenians are old friends: They lived in the same lands for 900 years. They shared the same food, the same land, and even the same songs for centuries.

For the old times' sake, I think the diaspora should think twice before acting with an arrogance and let the centuries old friendship between the peoples rejuvenate.

· How about the Turkish Parliament passing a resolution condemning the genocide perpetrated by the American military and settlers against Native Americans over 100+ year period? As far as I know, the US government has never officially recognized our systematic policies to eradicate the Indians as genocide.

· Armenian Diaspora spent over a billion dollars just to pass this resolution.

· If the Turks have a long ways to go before they are ready to join the European Union, but that also depends on whether the Europeans - who have recently shown disturbingly racist tendencies towards the Turks - ever let them in.

· Let historians decide what happened not lobby groups or politicians whose only interest is re-election.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335534
Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution

Pro-Turkish Comments from mainly non- Turkish intellectual (3) [ for Nancy Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution]

2008-05-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

· The Ottoman Empire found itself in WW1 thanks to the idiocy of Enver Pasha, and was under attack from practically all sides. Armenians, influenced by the nationalistic movements of the era, decided they wanted to establish an independent Armenian state and this was a golden opportunity for them to accomplish that dream.

So they collaborated with the Allies, especially the Russians and later with the French, and attacked Ottoman forces from within.

Tashnaks had been a relatively powerful guerilla group and, emboldened by the weakness of the Ottoman Empire, the so-called sick man of Europe, they cooperated with the Russians.

The Ottoman Empire comprised of dozens of nationalities, who co-existed relatively peacefully for centuries. Talat Pasha, the Interior Minister, was understandably furious about the Armenian betrayal, especially because Armenians were long regarded as a "faithful nation." Furious, he ordered a temporary relocation of Armenians to the southern provinces of the empire, away from the Russian border.

Many Armenians were killed on the way by thugs, and many died in the deserts from starvation, poor living conditions, epidemics etc. If one sees only the sufferings of Armenians, one immediately concludes this was genocide, period. But if one also considers the sufferings of the entire population, then one begins to get the real picture. Just to give a sense of how bad the conditions were in the Ottoman Empire at the time, in 1914, 90,000 Ottoman soldiers froze to death in a single night in Sarikamis in northeastern Turkey, because they didn't have winter clothes in mid-December in -30 degree weather.

...And their commander who forced them to march was none other than Enver Pasha, one of the three pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire at the time. Enver was a total incompetent, a total idiot who put the Ottoman Empire into WW1, eventually causing it to completely collapse. I suppose no one would claim that Enver was performing genocide on his own army.

When asked later how his 90,000 soldiers died, he is rumored to have said, "What difference does it make. They would have died some day wouldn't they" The relocation of the Armenian population to the southern provinces, was, entirely in the spirit of the internment of the Japanese in the US and Canada during WW2.

The big difference was that Ottoman Empire was in ruins, so much so that it could not supply winter clothes to even its army.

So logistics was out of question, and the three Pashas were just too indifferent to the needs of people anyway, be they Turks, soldiers in the Turkish army or Armenians. I think this is the hardest part for Armenians to accept. They think they were systematically murdered, when in fact nothing, nothing in the Ottoman Empire was systematic in those days. There was poverty and chaos everywhere.

Those Armenians, who, despite the odds, were able to make it to Syria, either enlisted in the French army to fight the Ottomans, or left for America or Europe. Some who were able to survive, did indeed come back to Turkey after the war. There is an interesting book titled "The World is enough for all of us" by a Turkish-Armenian writer Sarkis Cerkezyan, who returned to his hometown after the war.

I especially recommend the book, because it conveys a very good sense of the chaos of the time and shows that things are not as black and white as some people are led to believe. There was quite a bit of suffering on the Turkish side as well.

Picture this: Suppose you are a native American living in a reservation, and suppose skinheads, KKK and sick people of that vein from neighboring towns decide to attack the reservation, late at night. The men in the reservation grab their arms and a gunfight begins. They are attacking from every which direction. You begin feeling overwhelmed because they have better guns and they are so many. Suddenly, you see that your neighbor isn't shooting at them but he is shooting at you.

Remember it's a life-and-death fight. So you storm your neighbor's house because this guy is killing your people. But during that fight your traitor neighbor's little babies get killed too.

Obviously you didn't mean to kill the babies, but that's what happened. If somebody calls you a "baby-killer" how do you react?

Technically, the bullet in the baby's head is from your gun so you killed the baby. But are you a "baby-killer" ? You definitely feel sorry that the babies got killed, but then you know that you had to defend yourself. You also know that you'd never kill your neighbor's baby, so you feel you don't deserve that characterization.

It may be very tempting to simplify things to the "good guy bad guy" scheme where madmen like Hitler & Co exterminate defenseless Jews. Add the few hundred thousand votes that could be won/lost in next year's elections, and you have the recent theatrical voting in the US congress. So should those tragic events be labeled genocide? I am not a lawyer and I don't have a sense as to what, technically the word genocide means.

They were certainly tragic events, but seeing only one side of the tragedy and ignoring the rest, is not a stance, that I would characterize as fair and ethical. The Ottoman empire collapsed as a result of WWI, nearly half the territory was lost, millions of Turks died, 250,000 just in Gallipoli, coincidentally enough in 1915 as well. My father was born in 1908 in Saloniki near the Dojran lake, now in Greece, and they too were forcefully emigrated to Asia Minor and lost all their lands in Saloniki. My grandfather fought for nearly 10 years and died penniless. WWI brought disaster to millions of people.

Americans interned some 120,000 Japanese-Americans, Canadians interned 20,000, even though, to my knowledge not a single case of betrayal was documented by these people. After the war, the Japanese-Americans were released of course and returned to their homes.Personally I believe a similar scenario would have taken place for Armenians, had the circumstances been suitable after WWI. But imagine how Americans would have reacted, if the Japanese had invaded mainland US and the Japanese-Americans had joined the Japanese army to establish an independent Japanese state, say in Seattle and California!

Trying to draw a parallel between the Hitler/Jews case and Ottoman/Armenian case is absurd. Turks NEVER thought of Armenians as "inferior" people. On the contrary, Armenians enjoyed the esteemed sympathy of Turks in the Ottoman empire.

Had the purpose of internment of the Armenians been genocide in order to accomplish the "Turkification" of Anatolia, then why wasn't the same internment applied to the Greek and the Jewish populations in Anatolia?

Sometimes a little logic goes a long way.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335534

Pro-Turkish Comments from mainly non- Turkish intellectual (2) [ for Nancy Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution]

2008-05-08T20:01:00.000-07:00

“ There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempts to prevent it, which were not very successful.

Yes there were tremendous massacres, the numbers are very uncertain but a million may well be likely,[24] ...[and] the issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government... there is no evidence for such a decision.[25] ” Lewis thus believes that "to make [Armenian Genocide], a parallel with the Holocaust in Germany" is "rather absurd."[24]

In an interview with Haaretz he stated: “ The deniers of Holocaust have a purpose: to prolong Nazism and to return to Nazi legislation. Nobody wants the 'Young Turks' back, and nobody wants to have back the Ottoman Law.

What do the Armenians want? The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds.

On the one hand, they speak with pride of their struggle against the Ottoman despotism, while on the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute.[26] ·

The more idiotic resolutions passed from western countries the farther Armenia and Turkey is gonna be from a real solution.

Turkey has been suffering from a terrible terror problem while it is trying to survive as a secular democracy in the middle of the most problematic geo-politic territory of the world, surrounded by Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Russia the countries that US considers threat from 7,000 miles away! Turkish public is full of anger and frustration than ever. And western world keeps pushing Turkey to the dark side of the divide everyday.
If US and Europe lose Turkey to Iran-Russia Inc this will not be the best interests of US, Turkey and Armenia. · the events in 1915 were tragic events, both for Turks and Armenians living in Turkey at the time.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335534
Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution

Greeks and even the Colombians were remembered but not Turks.

2008-05-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

· I am a United States veteran and served in The US Air Force. I still have friends in Iraq fighting for our freedom. I can tell you that I have never known a nation more underrepresented and discredited more than Turkey. Turkish troops were clearly the heroes of the Korean War, ask any Korean veteran but yet when the 50th anniversary of Korean War was being celebrated noone heard Turks getting credit for their bravery.

Greeks and even the Colombians were remembered but not Turks. Why not? I tell you why. Armenians and Greeks have done a wonderful job on preventing any positive image of Turkey in The United States. I am an Irish-American who happened to dig deep since I have noticed what Turks have been facing due to having some close Turkish friends.

Once I started digging and conducting a lengthy research I was shocked to find out how well Armenians have been playing that Christian card. Anyways, this resolution shouldn't pass because there was no government-ordered genocide. I am not denying that Armenians didn't suffer as a result of the war but also many Turks suffered, too. Also did anyone know why Antonio Banderas planned on playing Ataturk in a Hollywood movie and backed out in the last minute? Well, research it like I did. It will open your eyes and give you an idea what Turks face.

I can recommend a website which i would call a one-stop shop with full of unbiased information. http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/ Yes Pelosi indeed puts her personal interests above American interests by pushing for the passing of this resolution just like Armenian-Americans who I think are Armenians first and Americans second unfortunately.. · Hrat Dink wasn't the only one who defended the genocide allegations there are tens of journalists and historians in Turkey taking Armenian side very openly. They write their books, and articles, they organize conferences in Turkish universities.

Hrat Dink got killed, god knows by whom, because he was all for dialogue.
That's why Diaspora hated him more than Turks. That's why Armenian and Turkish graduate students in Rhode Island tried to organize a joint concert dedicated to Dink but Diaspora prevented it at the last moment using every possible way including threatening the musicians and Armenian students who involved. What I know is that murder of Hrat Dink made Diaspora Armenians go "yessss" and I'll never make sure who was behind the curtain!!! · just because he was proud of his Turkish citizenship. During Mr Dink's funeral there were thousands of Turks chanting "We are all Hrank Dink". Of course there are extremist Fascists present in Turkey - similar to every other country but that is another problem. ·

PS: Orhan Pamuk was never thrown in jail, never claimed that there was a "genocide" - his suggestion being Turkey should not be afraid to openly debate the issue- and lastly he is not exiled out of the country. His books are still among the best sellers in Turkey.

· Some questions:

1. Why won't the Armenians (Armenian Diaspora) join the Turkish government in a fact-finding committee so they can examine ALL the facts?

2. Why have the Armenians actually REFUSED outright every offer the Turkish government has made for an examination of all the records?

3. Who is the "recent US Ambassador to Turkey" who used the word "genocide" and then was fired and had to "recant" his/her words? · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Lewis

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335534
Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution

Pro-Turkish Comments from mainly non-Turkish intellectuals - [ for Nancy Pelosi stumbles over Armenian resolution]

2008-05-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

· It would be a real shame if the US and the Europeans turn their backs on 70 million moderate, democratic and secular-minded Muslims. Turkey has been a stalwart ally to the US, sending troops to fight with UN forces in Korea, allowing the US to station nuclear missiles on Turkish soil during the Cold War, and use Turkish air bases.

· Congress screwed Turkey when they did not have the guts to stand up to President Bush and instead allowed a war that brought chaos and terrorism to Turkey's long southern border with Iraq. It would be adding insult to injury if Congress now passes this resolution on the Armenian genocide.

· This is one country which, albeit its shortcomings, is a beacon of democracy and secularism in the Balkans and the Middle East (look at the rest of them!) and an ally who has stood with us ever since the Korean War. The rest of the countries in the region already hate us and we were simply dying to have the only remaining ally (except Israel) hostile to us, weren't we?

· The fact that every single time the Turks have invited the Armenians to work with them to go through all the records (as the Turks have already done) is also problematic. But it is only problematic for the Armenians, because they have resolutely refused every offer the Turkish government has made at such a collaboration. · Yes, there was a calculated effort by the Ottoman Empire to rid itself of Armenians. Not because they were CHRISTIANS, but because they were separatists who were trying to get a slice of what we now call Turkey.

· That's the rub... The Armenians want it to be a CHRISTIAN genocide, and they want it to be the Republic of Turkey who was solely responsible in the end. Those are not the fact.

· This is a very old issue, here in Europe. Nothing "suddenly" about it. Turkey is having its membership to the EU blocked by this, as well as the Cyprus problemm.It is racism against Turks which is blocking EU-Turkey accession process.

· There are 10 times as many Muslims as Armenians. · These atrocities occurred during the Ottoman Empire, not The Turkish Republic. Blaming Turkey is like blaming Spanish Empire for wiping out the Aztecs..

· All major papers clearly ran editorials talking up how this was a tactic to keep Turkey out of the EU in France. The head of Sarkozy's party is an ethnic Armenian and Sarkozy and him don't want Turkey in the EU even if Turkey said it was responsible for the great potato famine in Ireland. · France is still in denial about what it truly did in Algeria.

· Frankly, I don't buy the argument that politicians were pandering to half a million Armenians - besides, there are 10 times as many Muslims as Armenians."

· Do you know that Sarkozy called Erdogan before the initial vote and said that, in return for some concessions, he would withdraw the text. (Such as opening the border with Armenia. However that border is closed because Armenia invaded and occupied neighboring Azerbaijan 15 years ago, not because of what happened in 1915) Isn't that political?

· Armenian groups went even so far as to sue the Turkish ambassador! Not to mention the fact that they also sued Bernard Lewis, emeritus professor at Princeton, who doesn't agree with the genocide thesis.

· Maybe there needs to be more empathizing the other way around. Did you know that half of Turkey's current population are the descendants of Turks and other Muslims who were driven off from the "Christian lands" between 1820-1924? (an attitude which continued until the 90s in Bosnia and Albania and Nagarno Karabagh) All the Turks see are double-standards.

· US Invasion of Iraq kills 600K+ people but whaam, this bill comes along from the very committee whose bills led to those deaths and says "oh btw, never mind Iraq or Palestine, but you Turks were such baaaad boys a century ago" ·

2. The Soviet Union: 1929 to 1953, 20 million dissidents rounded up and killed during Uncle "Joe" Stalin's purge trials. Never met a "refusnik" (sp?) he didn't like (to wack).

3. Germany: 1939 to 1945, over 13 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill, union leaders, Catholics and others rounded up by Hilter's SS and killed.

Did you know that Uncle "Adolph" was an animal rights guy? He cried when he saw films of lions and elephants being shot in Africa. Sort of took it out on everyone else, as it were.

4. China: 1948 to 1952, between 20-23 million potential dissenters rounded up by Marxist Mao Zedone and executed. Imagine Nancy, over half the Lieutenant Governors in the United States said they thought this was a good, effective, constituency control policy.

5. Cambodia: 1975 to 1977, over one millon "educated" people rounded up under the Pol Pot regime and executed. Really didn't pay to get a "higher" education over there. Like, no "educator" left behind

. 6. Guatemala: 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians rounded up and killed because they were on the wrong side of Marxism. Think about that one over your next cup of Latte. I think they also "popped" Jaun Valdez and his mule too, he should have stayed in Columbia! 7. Uganda: 1970 to 1975, 300,000 Christians rounded up and executed under Marxist Dictator Idi Amin. Hollywood made a movie, "Last King of Scotland" in honor of this poor, mis-understood maniac buffoon. Of course, as far as Hollywood was concerned, it was only the Christians that got "wacked," and they had it coming. Hollywood seems to forget that we all got it coming!

· Turkey has opened their archives to the world long time ago and called Armenia to do the same thing. I wonder why they deny it. Armenian population was 1,294,851 in 1915 based in Boghos Nubar (Armenian)'s letter to France Department of Foreign. And relocated Armenians are only half of it, 600,000. IF all of them were died, do you think dead people gave birth and now they are talking about 1,800,000 Armenian dead?

Please, a little logic!!! Armenians in the east at that time were relocated, nobody touched any Armenian in the west. Because they were the only ones who co-operated with Russians to stub Ottoman Empire on the back.

Didn't USA put Japaneese people in the camps in WWII? History is Historian's job bot the politician's. Turkey is ready to face a serious study of historians?

· Diaspora Armenian should help starving Armenia with those money not the politicians in USA. Turkey is ready to open the border with Armenia IF this comes to a peaceful intention.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=335534

Armenians were belligerents

2008-05-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

Letters Blog May 03, 2008 7
by Prof.Dr. Turkkaya Ataov (Emeritus of international relations)
Comments

VICKEN Babkenian (Armenia’s angels’’, Opinion, 25/4) states that “at the time the Australian troops landed at Gallipoli another event of historical importance was taking place in Turkey’’.
It’s true that a tragedy occurred in Turkey then, but in a way much different than the one stressed by Babkenian.

British authors Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, in their joint military classic Dictionary of the First World War, state that between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were living in Turkey in 1914, that the Armenian nationalists ``slaughtered an estimated 120,000 non-Armenians while the Turkish Army was preoccupied with mobilisation’’, that ``2500 rebels took (the city of) Van in April 1915 and proclaimed a provisional government’’, and that armed Armenians ``resumed control in late 1917 killing perhaps another 50,000 non-Armenians’’.

The commanders of the Armenians, such as Armen Garo Pasdermadjian, confess in their published memoirs that they bore arms, organised large forces and fought against the Turks in several fronts. The title of Pasdermadjian’s book proudly asserts thatArmenian participation was ``A Leading Factor in the Winning of the War’’ by the Allies.

Published documents prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Armenians committed violent assaults, armed terrorism, destruction, rape, assassinations and wholesale murder of various Muslim groups. Such misdeeds were condemned as contrary to the rules of war even by the Tsarist Russian and French officers who had provided them with uniforms,weapons and all kinds of support.

Many Armenian, British, US, French, Russian and Turkish sources indicate that the Armenians were not as helpless,
unprotected, un-armed and non-belligerent as mainstream opinion claims them to have been.

Turkkaya Ataov
Professor emeritus of international relations
Ankara University, Turkey
Copyright 2007 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT +10).
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/armenians_were_belligerents

Vicken Babkenian
April 25, 2008
AT the same time as Australian troops landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, another event of historical importance was taking place in Turkey: the Armenian genocide. The Gallipoli landing took place one day after the mass arrest of Armenian leaders in Istanbul, which is known as the beginning of the genocide. "Who, after all, remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?" were Adolf Hitler's famous words before he embarked on his heinous crime of the Holocaust.

One group who remember the Armenians are a handful of Australians who were at the forefront of the relief effort, yet their stories have been largely hidden. Not one Australian historian has devoted any attention to these remarkable Australians, who have been forgotten along with the "forgotten genocide". For example, Edith Glanville from Haberfield, Sydney, lost her son Leigh, from the 1st Battalion, who died in battle at Gallipoli. Thus began her extraordinary journey with the Armenian people.

Glanville was the first woman justice of the peace in NSW and founded both the Quota and Soroptimist clubs in Australia. Most notably she was honorary secretary of the Armenian Relief Fund of NSW from 1922, and became a driving force in raising more than $100,000 worth of supplies (about $19 million in today's value) within months. Other members of the relief fund included Charles Lloyd Jones, the first chairman of the ABC; and Oscar Lines, the general manager of the Bank of NSW. Glanville was so concerned about the plight of the Armenians that she ended up adopting an Armenian orphan. Former Menzies cabinet minister and British high commissioner Thomas White was a prisoner of war during World War I in Turkey. As a witness to the Armenian genocide, he later returned home and joined the Armenian relief effort. Another prominent Australian, the Rev J.E.Cresswell from Adelaide's Congregational Church (now the Uniting Church), was national secretary of the Armenian Relief Fund of Australasia in the 1920s. Witnessing the plight of Armenian refugees in Syria in 1923, Cresswell said: "Over 6000 are here. The sights within these caves are beyond words. No words seem adequate to describe the misery that must be the portion of these poor people." He oversaw relief programs from port to destination, including setting up an Australian-funded orphanage for 1700 children who survived the genocide in Antelias, Lebanon. That site is now one of the holiest for Armenians, the Catholicosate of Cilicia. In 1918, Sydney mayor James Joynton Smith set up the Armenian Relief Fund, which included prominent philanthropists and business people such as the Griffith brothers, one of the largest suppliers of tea and coffee in Australia, and the Elliot brothers, one of the nation's biggest pharmaceutical groups. This fund, with the help of many Sydneysiders, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the Armenians, all when Australians were already sacrificing so much during World War I.

Even prime minister Billy Hughes promised that free freight would be provided by commonwealth steamers for any contribution to the fund. These are just some of the hundreds of Australian stories of generosity, hope and moral decency that have been unearthed. In the words of Robert Manne: "In world history there is an intimate connection between the Dardanelles campaign and the Armenian genocide." So, as we reflect on the sacrifices of brave Australians who landed on those distant shores, let's also remember those Australians who lost loved ones and, through the kindness of their hearts, were able to save others. Vicken Babkenian is director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.' http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23594423-21147,00.html

2008-05-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

"We considered the Azerbaijani Turks as Tatars, yet they were a good people. Armenians on the other hand, are provocateurs in a single word." Frunze, Red Army commander
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"I have yet to meet a foreigner living in this part of the world and unbiased by politics, religion or pecuniary benefits from condemning the Turks, who has not most empathically stated that of all the races represented in the population of the old Turkish Empire, the Turks by far are the best people." E. Alexander Powell, American journalist and author,"The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia," 1923
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"Nearly everyone who touches upon the kernel of the nation learns to respect and love Turks, to humiliate Greeks, to hate and despise Armenians... Everywhere justifies the proverb, that the Greek defrauds 2 Jews, but the Armenian defrauds 2 Greeks. Certainly, if you have been defrauded in Anatolia, so you had a business with an Armenian"

"When I had business with Turks, I didn't need a written document, because his vow was enough. When I had business with Greeks, I was in need to sign the written document, because it is important for them. But when I had business with Armenians, I didn't sign any documents, because even the written document can't provide a barrier for their mendacity and intrigue"

German traveler, from the book "Outlines of Anatolia," p..6, p.188-191

2008-05-03T06:08:00.000-07:00

"The tolerance shown to foreign beliefs and hostile faiths by the Ottoman law and Ottoman officials which enabled them to establish their own religious institutions and to shape their own education was such that the thousand year old liberty reigning in France in the field of sects and beliefs, dating from the times of the ancient Gaul, could not be compared with it." Talcot Williams, Turkey, A World Problem of Today, New York, 1922, p. 194
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"In the interest of truth I will also affirm that you saw little of the cruelty you fasten upon the Turks. Besides that you have killed more Armenians than ever lived in the districts of the uprising. The fate of those people was sad enough without having to be exaggerated as you have done."
"Apart from that he (Enver Pasha) was in no respect what you picture him. Of course, if we are to take it for granted that we of the West are saints, then the Turk is any good. You will agree with me, no doubt, that the Turks count among the few gentlemen still in existence....
Ultimately truth will prevail." George A. Schreiner, distinguished war and political correspondent having served in Turkey from February through the end of 1915, in a no-holds-barred, extremely critical December 11,1918 letter to ex-Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, regarding the latter's unethically falsified, ghostwritten book (Ambassador Morgenthau's Story)

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"The Osmanli (Ottoman) has yet to be heard." (The English have) "heard stories ad nauseam of massacres, of pillages, of the ravishing of women, but none of these stories have been corroborated by a single European eyewitness." Captain Charles Boswell Norman, "The Armenians Unmasked" (1895)

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"...In the absence of unequivocal evidence that the Ottoman administration took a specific decision to eliminate the Armenians under their control at that time, British governments have not recognized those events as indications of genocide... Nor do we believe it is the business of governments of today to review events of over 80 years ago, with a view to pronouncing on them..." Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, Foreign Office spokesperson, on April 14, 1999; the PA News from London... reporting on yet another Armenian bid to get the British Government to recognize its "genocide."

2008-05-03T06:06:00.000-07:00

"Neither political nor legal or material claims against present-day Turkey can be derived from the recognition of this historical event as an act of genocide." European Parliament, 1987 Resolution

"It is only fair to acknowledge that, judged from a humane point of view, the methods of warfare pursued by the Turks are vastly superior to those which have disgraced their German masters."
Lord Kitchener, Official Report on Gallipoli as Minister of War, August 9, 1915.

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"Ottoman Armenians were completely free in the Ottoman Empire and the Turks were the Armenians' only shelter against Russia guaranteeing their traditions, religion, culture and language in comparison to Russian oppression under the Czars."
Vartanian, Armenian historian, "History of the Armenian Movement

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"Few Europeans realized that the Turkish Ottoman Sultan Suleiman was the head of the most democratic government of their time."
Harold Lamb, American historian and novelist, noted for his biographies of Genghis Khan, Alexander, and Hannibal

2008-05-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

"The Turk is the brother of the Armenian and they know it." William Saroyan, Antranik of Armenia, From "Inhale and Exhale," 1935; the "they" refers to forces... likely the great powers... that beg the question Saroyan goes on to ask: Why do they want them to kill one another?

What good does it do anybody? "America should feed the half million Turks whose hinterland was willfully demolished by the retreating Greeks, instead of aiding the Greeks and Armenians who are sitting around waiting for America to give them their next meal.
The stories of Turk atrocities circulated among American churches are a mess of lies. I believe that the Greeks and not the Turks are barbarians."
Colonel William Haskell, the American Red Cross; returning from a tour of investigation in the Near East. Source: The Turkish Myth, 1923. Here is what the colonel thought of the Armenians, according to Dr. Richard Hovannisian

ATTACKS ON ARMENIAN CONVOYS AND MEASURES TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT

2008-04-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

RELOCATION
Some Armenians have died as the result of the attacks made to some companies during the movement of Armenians towards their new settlement regions, especially by the Arabic tribes between Aleppo - Zor and Armenian committee member Urban.

As understood from a coded telegraph dated January 8th 1916, the attacks on the roads between Aleppo and Meskene resulted in the death of many Armenians, (1)

and that approximately 2.000 of the Armenians moving from Diyarbekir to Zor and from Saruc to Halep through Menbic road were robbed by the Urban tribes (2).

Again in Diyarbakir region, it has been notified that the gangs and the bandits killed almost 2.000 people including Armenians and Non - Muslims. Upon this event, it has been notified severely that such events should be immediately stopped and peace should be absolutely provided on the route of the companies, otherwise that province would be held responsible for the actions of the bandits. (3)

A coded telegraph sent to Diyarbekir, Mamuretülaziz and Bitlis provinces on June 14th 1915 informing that another company of 500 people were killed as the result of the Kurd attacks between Erzurum — Erzincan road. Upon this event, the use of any kind of instruments against the attacks of the villagers and the tribes and severe punishment of the ones attempting murder and usurpation had been ordered. (4)

The Ottoman government has shown extra ordinary efforts for providing food and the security of the companies while fighting against the enemy. It has shown great sensitivity about the murders and robberies, to which Armenians have been subjected to and tried to provide the safe performance of this transportation. With the instructions written to the administrations in the provinces, to which the transportation was made, the ones attacking the Armenian companies have been punished. The government, following up the precautions taken about this issue, has asked how many were punished harmed to the Armenian convoys, in the coded telegram it sent to Erzurum, Adana, Ankara, Halep, Hüdavendigar, Diyarbekir, Sivas, Trabzon, Konya, Mamoretülaziz provinces and Urfa, Izmit, Zor, Karesi, Kayseri, Kütahya, Maras, Karahisar administrators on September 5 1915. (5)

On the other hand, Investigation Commissions have been established for determining the officers, who showed reluctance or unlawful actions during the transportation of the Armenian companies. A commission consisting of Muhtar Bey, Ankara Province civil service investigator, and Kaymakam Muhiddin Bey, Izmir Gendarme Regional Investigator under the chairmanship of Asim Bey, first chief of Interrogation Court has been sent to Adana, Halep, Suriye, Urfa, Zor and Maras regions (6)

and a commission to which Ismail Hakki Bey, member of State Council has also participated, under the chairmanship of Hulusi Bey, chairman of Court of Appeal has been sent to Hüdavendigar, Ankara, Izmit, Karasi, Kütahya, Eskisehir, Kayseri, Karahisar-i sahib and Nigde regions. (7)

A third commission consisting of Nihad, Public Prosecutor of Istanbul Court of First Instance and Ali Naki Bey, a Gendarme Major under the chairmanship of Mazhar Bey, former governor of Bitlis has been appointed in Sivas, Trabzon, Erzurum, Mamuretülaziz, Diyarbekir, Bitlis and Canik regions. In a coded confidential telegraph sent to Mazhar Bey, who was the chairman of this commission and was in Sivas at that time, the commission has been requested to carry out the necessary investigations at the locations they visited and then to report the results of such investigations continuously to the center. (8)I

n accordance with the instructions given to the commissions, gendarme, police officers or directors would be sent to the Court Martial in accordance with the result of the investigation to be carried out about them. A list of the ones sent to the Court Martial would be given to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The results of the investigations to be carried out about the governors and district governors would be first submitted to the Ministry of Internal affairs and the transactions would be carried out in accordance with the order given.

If there occurred any misuse among the Court Martial chairmen or members and military officers, those people would be notified to the related army commanderships.

In the light of the reports given by the investigation commissions, many officers misusing their duties (stealing money and goods from the companies, causing the companies be subject to violation because of not performing their protection duties as required, acting in violation of the transportation order) have been discharged. Some of them have been judged at the Court Martial and have been sentenced to heavy punishments. (9)

REFERENCE:Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915), TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001

FOOTNOTES1) Coding Office, no. 59/2442) Coding Office, no. 56/140; 55 — A/1443) Coding Office, no. 54/406; no 54 — A/73; no 54 — A/2484) Coding Office, no 54/9; no 54/1625) Coding Office, no 55-A/846) Coding Office; no 56/1867) Coding Office; no 56/355; no 58/388) Coding Office, no 56/2679) Coding Office, no 58/278; no 58/141; no. 55-A/156; no. 55-A/157; no 61/165; no 57/116; no 57/416; no 57/105; no 59/235; no 54-A/326; no 59/196

ARMENIANS NOT SUBJECTED TO RELOCATION

2008-04-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 10. February 2007, 13:33:20

RELOCATION

The relocation decision has not been applied to all Armenians. At the beginning, a part of the Armenians living in the regions (In Urfa, Germis and Birecik, Erzurum, Aydin, Trabzon, Edirne, Canik, Cannakkale, Adapazari, Halep, Bolu, Kastamonu, Tekirdag, Konya and Karahisar-i sahib) have been kept out of the scope of migration. (1)

But, thereafter, when it has been certain that these people were also involved in various severity events, majority of them been subjected to migration. (2)

The ill and the blind were not subjected to relocation and the Catholic and the Protestant ones, the soldiers and their families, the officers, merchants, some workers and masters were not subject to migration, either. Likewise, in the telegraphs sent to the provinces, it is requested not to move the ill, the blind, the disabled and the old and to settle them in the city centers. (3)

With the telegraphs sent to the related provinces on August 2, 1915 and August 15th 1915, it has been ordered not to subject the Armenians from the Catholic and Protestant sects to migration and to settle them in the cities they were currently in and to notify the number of their population. (5)

[note by JGArslan: Only Gregorian Armnenians were subjected to relocation.The reason of this discrimination must be clearfied.]

The ones that have been subjected to migration by mistake have been settled in the cities they were currently in. (6).

But among the ones that were kept out of the scope of migration, the ones that were observed to have harmful actions have been sent to new settlement regions regardless of their being Catholic or Protestant. (7)

In the coded telegraph sent to the provinces on August 15 1915, the Armenians providing service as officers and health personnel in the Ottoman army and their families have not been subjected to migration and left at their locations. (8)

Besides this, the Armenians working in the branches of Ottoman Bank, in the Turkish Tobacco Monopoly and in some consulates have not been subjected to relocation, either, as long as they remained loyal to the government and their good behavior continued. Furthermore, orphans and widowed women have not been subjected to migration and have been taken under protection in the villages and orphanages. (10)

The children, who became orphans during the transportation have been sent to Sivas and settled in the orphanages there. (11)

A general order was issued on April 30, 1916 about the Armenian families needing protection. With this order, the families with no guardians, whose male members either were transported or were in military service, were settled in the villages and towns, where there were no Armenians and their catering were met from the Immigrants’ Allowance. The children up to 12 were given to Muslim families at locations, where the orphanages were not sufficient and their education and development have been provided. 30 kurush was paid to the poor Muslim families to meet the expenses of the children from the Immigrants’ Allowance. Young and widowed women were permitted to marry Muslim men with their own will. (12)

REFERENCE:Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915), TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001FOOTNOTES1) Coding Office, no 54-A/155; no 56/ 114; no 56/ 225; no 56/ 226; no 57/89; no 57/177; no 59/ 2182) Coding Office, no 54-A/271; no 54-A / 272 (July 22nd 1331/ August 4th 1915)3) Coding Office, no 56/27; no 67/1864) Coding Office, no. 54-A/ 251; no 55/205) Coding Office, no. 56/112 (September 6th 1331/ September 19th 1915, to Konya province)6) About this issue, orders have been sent via telegraph to Sivas (Coding Office 56/176), Mamuretülaziz and Diyarbekir provinces (Coding Office no 56/172) on September 14th 1331 / September 26th 1915; to Konya (Coding Office, no 58/2) and Ankara (Coding Office, no 58/159) provinces on 1 Tesrinisani 1331 / November 14th 1915.7) A telegraph in this way has been sent to Adana province on August 1331 / September 2nd 1915 (Coding Office, no. 55-A/23).8) Coding Office, no. 55/189) Coding Office, no 56/36 (September 3rd 1331 / September 16th 1915); no 56/243 (September 17th 1331 / September 30th 1915); no 56/360 (September 28th 1331 / October 11th 1915).10) Coding Office, no 54/411; no 54/450; no 54-A / 32511) Coding Office, no 61/18-2012) This order has been sent to Adana, Erzurum, Edirne, Halep, Hüdavendigar, Sivas, Diyarbekir, Mamuretülaziz, Konya, Kastamonu, Trabzon provinces and Izmit, Canik, Eskisehir, Karahisar-i sahib, Maras, Urfa, Kaysri, Nigde possessorships (Coding Office, no 63/147) and to Ankara province on May 17th 1332 / May 30th 1916 (Coding Office no 64/162).

MEETING THE REQUIREMENTS AND EXPENSES OF RELOCATED ARMENIANS

2008-04-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 10. February 2007, 13:34:10
RELOCATION

The Government has written notices to all provinces before beginning the Armenian relocation and requested them to take precautions to meeting all needs of the companies that would pass through their regions and to stock food. (1)

Various orders have been given to Immigrant and Tribe Settling Directorate for food — beverage provision. (2)

Sükrü Bey, the Immigrant and Tribe Settling Director was individually in charge for the determination and provision of the needs. (3)

It is understood from the documents that a total of 2.250.000 kurus has been allocated to meet the needs of the companies and of this amount, 400.000 kurus has been allocated to Konya, 150.000 to Izmit province subdivision, 200.000 to Eskisehir province subdivision, 300.000 to Adana province, 300.000 to Halep province, 100.000 to Syria province, 300.000 to Ankara province, (4) 500.000 to Mousul province. (5)

Furthermore, the provinces could aid the immigrants from their own budgets and sometimes new money allocations were sent from the center in accordance with the condition of needs. (6)

Meanwhile, a certain amount of money sent from America to be given to Armenian immigrants has been distributed to the Armenians under the knowledge of the government, by the American missioners and consuls. (7)

Besides this, it has been understood that some Armenians living in America have secretly sent the money they collected among themselves to the Armenians subjected to immigration. (8)

The Ottoman Government, while spending such great amounts of money for relocation on one hand, either delayed or completely canceled the debts owed either to the state or individuals of the Armenians subjected to migration. Likewise in a coded telegraph sent by Talat Pasha to Maras Governor on June 1, 1915, he requested not to take back the debts of Armenians and in another order sent to all provinces on August 4th 1915, the tax debts of the displaced Armenians were postponed (9).

On the other hand, health officers have been assigned to the migrating companies for providing therapy in case of illness. (10)

Furthermore, the legal proceedings about the criminal suspects, who were among the ones subjected to migration, were delayed. (11)

REFERENCE: Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915), TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001.1) Coding Office, no 55/291; no 55/341; no 57/345; no 57/3512) Coding Office, no 55/152; no 55/291; no 55/341; no 55-A/17; no 55-A/135; no 57/1103) Coding Office, no 55-A/16 (telegraph dated August 18th 1331 / August 31st 1915)4)

Coding Office, no 55-A/175) The budget of the Directorate of Settlement of Tribes and immigrants for the year 1331 was 78.000.000 kurus and 1332 budget was 200.000.000 kurus and this amount was spent for the Armenians, Greeks and Arabs subjected to relocation and the Muslims coming from the regions invaded by the enemy (BA, BEO, no. 334063).6) Coding Office, no 53/305, no 55-A/1187) Coding Office, no 60/2818) Coding Office, no 60/1789) Coding Office, no 54-A/26810) Coding Office, no 54-A/22611) With a notification sent from the Courthouse and Sects Ministry to the Office of the Grand Vizier, it is notified that a decision for judging the ones that are migrated at the locations they are sent to and the ones that are not migrated at the locations they were at (BA, BEO, no. 329176).

PROPERTIES OF THE ARMENIANS SUBJECTED TO RELOCATION

2008-04-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 10. February 2007, 13:42:21

RELOCATION

With an order issued on June 10, 1915, the properties of the Armenians subjected to displacement have been taken under protection.

In accordance with the order, it has been decided to sell the properties by auction that may decay and the animals or the production houses that must be operated, by the commissions that were established and by auction and to send the money to their owners.It is understood that the Ottoman Government showed great care in the implementation of this order. In order to prevent any misuse, a great care has been shown. Through the Commission on Abandoned Property, the money coming through the auction in the names of their owners was paid to the owners of such property. (1)

When there was some gossip was made during these sales, the government has sent a coded telegraph to the governors, provinces and Commissions on Left Properties on August 3rd 1915 and forbidden the purchase of those properties by the state officers because this could lead to some misuses. (2) But, thereafter, this decision has been canceled in some province on the condition of paying the real value with cash. (3)

The government has taken all precautions in order to prevent any kind of unlawful actions. Likewise, in a coded telegraph sent to the Chairmanship of Commission on Abandoned Property of Sivas on August 11th 1915, it has been requested to take the precautions that would prevent profiteering and misuses. (4) Again on the same date, with an order sent to all provinces, the precautions to be taken and the applications to be performed about this issue were indicated in the form of articles (5)

In accordance with this order: “no suspected person would be permitted to enter the evacuated regions; in case some people have purchased properties against cheap prices, the sales would be canceled and the real value of the property would be determined so that illegal interests would be prevented; the displaced Armenians would be permitted to take any goods they want with themselves; among the goods that can not be carry away like, the ones that would decay would be sold, but the goods that would not decay would be protected in the name of their owners; care would be paid not to lose touch with the owner of the immovable assets that would be hired, transferred and pledged and if there was any applications carried out in violation of these provisions starting from the date of commencement of the migration, they would be canceled; that no disputes would be allowed about such goods; the Armenians subjected to migration would be permitted to sell their properties to anybody except the foreigners” (6)

The provisions in these orders were applied with great care and the art and commerce enterprises that remained from the Armenians were transferred in high prices to settlement companies, which were established, their real value. (7)

The Commission on Abandoned Property has sent the money from sold properties to their owners. (8)

REFERENCE:Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915), TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001.

FOOTNOTES1) Coding Office, no 53/3032) Coding Office, no 54-A/2593) Coding Office, no 55/1074) Coding Office, no 54-A/3855) For the texts of the laws issued about the properties of the displaced Armenians, see “Ahar mahallere nakledilen eshasin ve düyun ve matlubat-i metrukesi hakkinda kanun-u muvakkat”, Takvim-i Vekayi, September 14th 1331 and 18 Zilkade 1333, no. 2303, 7 year; furthermore, see Y.H.Bayur, Turkish Revolutions History, Ankara 1957, III/3, p. 45-466) Coding Office, no 54-A/3887) Coding Office, no 61/31; no 60/275; no 60/2778) Coding Office, no 57/348; no 57/349; no 57/350

THE RETURN OF RELOCATED ARMENIANS

2008-04-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

RELOCATION
The migration was sometimes stopped during relocation both due to the weather conditions and congestion. Starting from November 25, 1915, with the orders sent to the provinces, the migration has been provisionally interrupted due to winter.

(1) On February 21st 1916, an order was sent to all provinces to stop the Armenian relocation. However, it has been indicated that this would not cover the harmful people, the ones related with the committees would be immediately collected and sent to Zor province subdivision.

(2)Upon the administrative and military necessity, a general order was sent stating that as of March 15th 1916, the Armenian migration was stopped and no relocation would be made for any reasons thereafter.

(3)After the completion of relocation, since the Armenians were mostly settled mostly in Syria province, the Armenian Patriarchy in Istanbul was closed on August 10th 1916 and moved to Jerusalem. Sis and Akdamar Cathogicospacies were united and moved to Jerusalem.

(4) The chairmanship of the newly established patriarchy has been given to Sis Cathogicospos Sahak Efendi.

(5)Following the end of the 1st World War, Ottoman Government has issued a decree for the return of the Armenians subjected to relocation to their former locations. In the letter sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mustafa Pasha to the Prime Ministry on January 1919, it is indicated that orders have been given to the related places for the transportation of the Armenians, who wanted to return, to their former locations and that the necessary precautions have been taken.

(6) The decree of return prepared by the government, dated December 31st 1918 is as follows:1- Only the ones, who want to return, will be migrated, except those people, no one else will be touched.

2- The precautions necessary will be taken for assuring a good journey, and for preventing housing and catering shortage in the returning locations; the migration and returning transactions will be started after contact is established with the administrators of the regions they will return to and after the necessary precautions are taken

3- The abandoned houses and lands will be returned to the owners.

4- The houses of the ones, where formerly immigrants have been placed, will be evacuated.5- A few families may be settled in the same location temporally in order to provide sufficient housing

.6- Buildings such as churches, schools and the income generating locations will be returned to the society they belong to.

7- If requested, the orphans will be returned to their guardians, who will be carefully determined, or to their societies, after their identifications are carefully determined.

8- The ones, who have converted their religions, will be able to return to their former religion if they want to.

9- Among the Armenian women, who have married to Muslims and converted their religions will be free to return to their former religion. In this case their marriage act will be automatically canceled. The problems relating to the ones, who do not want to return to their former religion and not wish to divorce from their husbands will be dissolved by the courts.

10- The Armenian properties, which are not in anyone’s ownership, will be returned to their first owners and the return of those which have become the property of treasury will be decided with the approval of the property officers. Further explanatory minutes will be prepared about this issue.

11- The property sold to the Muslim immigrants will be delivered to their first owners gradually as their owners return. Article 4 will be definitely applied

.12- If the Muslim immigrants have made repairs and additions in the houses and stores that will be returned to their former owners, or if they have planted the lands and olive groves, the rights of both sides will be observed.

13- The immigration and expenses of the Armenians in need will be met from the Military College Allowance.14- The amount of transportation made until the current time and the amount of transportation made and the target location of such transportation will be notified on the fifteenth and last days of each month. 15- The Armenians, who have left the Ottoman borders and who want to return, will not be accepted until a new order is issued.

The provisions of the decree explained herein above were valid for the Greek immigrants as well as the Armenians.

REFERENCE:Halacoglu, Prof. Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915), TTK Publication, Ankara, 2001.F

OOTNOTES1)

Coding Office, no 57/273; no 58/124; no 58/161; no 59/123; no 60/1902) Coding Office, no 61/723) Coding Office, no 62/214) For the new regulation made in 1916 for the Armenian Patriarchy, see Y. H. Batur, Turkish Revolution History, III/3, p. 57-59.5) Coding Office, no 66/202; no 66/220; no 63/1366) BA, BEO, no 341055. This letter of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has also been transferred to the Ministry of Courthouse and Sects due to its relation, on 26 Kanun-u evvel 1334 (January 8th 1919), by the Prime Ministry.

INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED BY FOREIGNERS ABOUT AND THEIR OUTCOME

2008-04-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 10. February 2007, 13:45:02
RELOCATION
Just after the First World War, following the invasion of Istanbul and other regions by the entente states’ armies, hundreds of political and military leaders and Ottoman intellectuals were sent to and imprisoned in Malta Island by the English, with the claim that they were “war criminals”.

Comprehensive investigations have been carried out on the Ottoman archives for finding evidences of crime about the people imprisoned in Malta.

As the result of these investigations, no evidence could be submitted to the court neither against the Istanbul government of that time nor about the people imprisoned in Malta in order to prove the accusations on them.

The English Court has made desperate investigations in their own archives and in the archives of USA government in Washington, but again no results could be reached.In the same way, in the message found in the USA archive reports, sent by R.C. Craigie, the English Ambassador in Washington to Lord Curzon on July 13th 1921, the following is expressed:“I am sorry to notify you that there is nothing that can be used as evidence against the Turks imprisoned in Malta.

There is nothing that will provide sufficient evidence.

These reports do not seem to include even the evidences that may be helpful in supporting the information that is currently held by the Majesty’s Government about the Turks in any way.” (1)On July 29th 1921, the Legal Consultants of the King in London decided that the accusations directed to the people in the list of the English Foreign Affairs had a semi — political characteristic and therefore the transactions to be carried out about them should be held separate from those of the Turks, who have been arrested as war criminals.Furthermore, the expressions “Until now, no deposition has been obtained from any witness proving the accusations made about the arrested are true. In fact, it is not definite if a witness will be found or not; since in a country that is far and difficult to reach like Armenia and especially after such long time, it is even unnecessary to express how difficult it is to find a witness” (2) belongs to the Legal Consultants of His Majesty’s Government.

Consequently, the people, who were under arrest in Malta, were set free in 1922 without any accusation directed to them and without any cases held.During that time, some documents accusing the Ottoman Government of a so — called genocide and trying to evidence this issue was published by the English press.

These documents were claimed to have been found in the Ottoman State Offices in Syria by the English Invasion Forces under the direction of General Allenby. However, the interrogations carried out thereafter by the English Foreign Affairs Ministry showed that these were not documents obtained by the English army, but false documents written by the Nationalist Armenian Delegation in Paris to the allied delegations.

REFERENCES:1.PRO. FO. July 13th 1921, 371/ 6504/ E.85192.Foreign Office, July 29th 1921 371/ 6504 / E.8745

THE STANCE TAKEN BY SCHOLARS TO ALLEGATIONS OF GENOCIDE

2008-04-30T19:03:00.000-07:00

The scientists, who perceive the history within the scientific principles, have reached the original copies and documents relating to the issue since 1925 until today, have listened to living witnesses and have made individual observations at the locations of the events.

These are the scientists, who knew that the Ottoman archives were open to the researchers since 1925 and who themselves reached the documents.

Therefore, only those who are as knowledgeable on this issue as they can comment on or can object to their views. For this reason, the report submitted by 69 American scientists to the members of the Assembly of Representatives in relation with the issue has great importance.

(1)“To the attention of the Members of USA Assembly of Representatives

The Turkish, Ottoman researches and the American Academicians specialized in Middle East, whose signatures are put hereunder, have agreed that the language used in decree number 192 by USA Assembly of Representatives is misleading and / or wrong in many points. “Although we fully support the concept of “National Day of Commemorating Inhuman Behaviors”, we find the following part, in this text, unacceptable:

…. 1.5 million Armenian — originated people, who have been the victims of the genocide made in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 …”Our disagreement focuses on the use of he words “Turkey” and “genocide” and may be summarized as follows:
From the 14th century until 1922, the area, which is called Turkey, more correctly as the “Republic of Turkey” today, was a part of the Ottoman Empire, which was a multi — religion and multi — national state. Just as it is wrong to accept the Habsburg Empire to be equivalent to the Republic of Austria of today, it is also wrong to accept the Ottoman Empire to be equivalent of to the Republic of Turkey.

The Ottoman Empire, which exited from the history stage in 1922 with the Turkish Revolution gave birth to the establishment of current Republic of Turkey in 1923, was a state, which kept the lands of more than 25 states, over Southeastern Europe, Northern Africa and Middle East. The Republic of Turkey was only one of them can not be held responsible for any events that happened in the Ottoman period.

But the ones, who have written the decree, wanted to give the responsibility of the “genocide” between 1915 and 1923 to Turkey by using the name “Turkey”.As for the genocide accusation, no one, who has signed this paper, have the purpose of underrating the dimensions of the pains that the Armenians have suffered. Likewise, we have the opinion that the pains of the Muslim public in the mentioned region can not be assessed in any other way.

The evidences put forward until now point out that an internal war between the communities (between the Muslim and Christian groups) has become more complex with the hunger, epidemics and the massacres and pains in and around Anatolia during the first World War. In fact, during those years, a continuous war has been suffered in the region that is not so different from the tragedy going on in Lebanon in the last decade.

The losses of both the Muslim and the Christian nations are big numbers. However, there are many documents and findings that the historians must reach in order to determine the reasons of the events that resulted in the death of the Eastern Anatolian public, which includes many Christians as well as Muslims. History is created by the statesmen and the politicians and it is written by the scientists. For the operation of this process, the scientists must be given the chance to reach the written records of the former statesmen and politicians.

Until now, a big part of the archives related with this issue in the Soviet Union, Syria, Bulgaria and Turkey have been kept closed to the historians. Until these archives are reached, the history of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 — 1923 in the scope of the decree of the Assembly of Representatives numbered 192 can not be completely known.We believe that USA Congress should encourage the full opening of the history archives relating to the issue and should not make any accusations until the historical events are fully brought into light.

The accusations such as the ones in the decree number 192 of the Assembly of Representatives would unavoidably result in unfair decisions about Turkey and maybe damaging the improvement, which the historians started to record in understanding these tragic events.As shown by the comments herein above, the history of the Ottoman — Armenians is an issue that is frequently debated among the historians and many of the historians do not share the expressions in the decree number 192.

In case the congress adopts this decree, it will have tried to decide which part of the historical problem is true through laws. Such a decision basing on assumptions that are historically doubtful gives harm to the honest historical research and damages the reliability of the American legislation process.

May 19 1985Prof. Dr. Rifaat Abou — El — HajHistory, California State UniversityProf. Roderic DavisonHistory, George Washington UniversityAss. Prof. Sarah Moment AtisTurkish Language and Literature, Wisconsin UniversityDistinguished Prof. Walter DennyArt History and Near East Researches, Massachussets UniversityAss. Prof. Darl BarbirHistory, Siena Institution (New York)Dr. Alan DubenAnthropologist, Researcher, New York Ilhan BASGÖZUral — Altay Studies Division, Turkish Researches Program Director, Indiana UniversityAss. Prof. Ellen Ervin Turkish Researches, New York UniversityProf. Daniel G. HatesAnthropology, New York City UniversityProf. Caesar FarahIslam and Middle East History, Minnesota UniversityProf. Ülkü BatesArt History, New York City UniversityPrf. Carter FindleyHistory, Ohio State UniversityProf. Gustav BayerleUral — Altay Studies, Indiana UniversityProf. Michael FinefrockHistory, Charleston InstitutionProf. Andreas G. E. BodroglifettiTurkish and Iran Languages, California UniversityAss. Prof. William HickmanTurkish, California Berkeley UniversityAss. Prof. Kathleen BurrilTurkish Researches, Columbia UniversityAss. Prof. Frederick LatimerHistory, Utah UniversityProf. Alan FisherHistory, Michigan UniversityProf. John HymesHistory, Glenville State InstitutionProf. Timothy ChildsTeacher, Johns Hopkins UniversityDr. Health W. LowryTurkish Research Institution Inc. Washington D.C.Prof. Shafiga DauletPolitical Science, Connecticut UniversityProf. Halil InalcikOttoman History, American Art & Science Academy Member, Chicago UniversityAss. Prof. Ralph JaeckelTurkish, California UniversityAss. Prof. Ezel Kural ShawHistory, California UniversityAss. Prof. Ronald JenningsHistory & Asian Researches, Illinois UniversityProf. John Masson Simth, JRHistory, California Berkeley UniversityAss. Prof. Cornell FleischerHistory, Washington UniversityDr. Svat SoucekTurkologist, New YorkProf. Peter GoldenHistory, Rutgers UniversityDr. Philip SoddardMiddle East Institute Director, Washington D.C.Prof. Tom GoodrichHistory, Indiana UniversityProf. Frank TachauPolitical Science, Chicago, Illinois UniversityDr. Andrew CouldOttoman History, Arizona, FlagstaffRobert StaabMiddle East Center Vice Director, Utah UniversityProf. William GriswoldHistory, Colorado State UniversityProf. Rhoads MurpheyMiddle East Languages, Cultures and History, Columbia UniversityProf. Tibor Halasi — KuvTurkish Researches, Columbia ProfessorAss. Prof. June StarrAnthropology, Suny Stony BrookDistinguished Prof. J.C. HurewitzFormer Director of Middle East Institute, Columbia UniversityProf. James Stewart RobinsonTurkish researches, Michigan UniversityProf. AvgdorlevyHistory, Brandens UniversityProf. Thomas NaffHistory, Middle East Researches Institute Director, Pennsylvania University Prof. Bernard Lew’isMiddle East History, Princeton UniversityAss. Prof. John WoodsMiddle East History, Chicago UniversityAss. Prof. Justin Mc CarthyHistory, Louisville UniversityProf. Pierre OberlingHistory, New York CityUniversityProf. Jon MandavilleMiddle East History, Portland State UniversityAss. Prof. Madeline ZilfiHistory, Maryland UniversityProf. Michael MeekerAnthropology, California UniversityProf. Metin TamkocInternational Law, Texas Tech. UniversityAss. Prof. James KellyTurkish, Utah UniversityProf. Stanford ShawHistory, California UniversityAss. Ass. Prof. Kerim BeySoutheastern UniversityDr. Elaine SimthTurkish History, Retired Foreign Affairs OfficerProf. Metin KuntOttoman History, New YorkAss. Prof. David ThomasHistory, Rhode Island InstituteAss. Prof. William OchsenwaldHistory, Virginia Polytechnic InstituteAss. Prof. Grace M. SimthHistory, California Berkeley universityAss. Prof. Robert OlsonHistory, Kentucky UniversityAss. Prof. Margaret L.VenzkeHistory, Dickinson Institute (Pennsylvania)Ass. Prof. William PeachyJewish and Near East Languages & Literatures, Ohio State UniversityE. Prof. Donald WebsterTurkish HistoryAss. Prof. Donald QuataertHistory, Houston UniversityProf. Walter WeikerPolitical Science, Rutgers UniversityProf. Howard ReedHistory, Connecticut UniversityProf. Warren S .WalkerEnglish, Turkish Oral Stories Archive Director, Texas Tech. UniversityProf. Dank Wart RustowPolitical Science, New York City UniversityInvitations have been made by Turkey at different times in order to discuss the correctness of the documents put forward by the Armenians and the Armenian pretensions supported by the Western European Countries and Russia. These calls have been both directed at to the Armenian scientists and to the people, who have undertaken the Armenian propaganda. However, an important part of these people did not participate the meeting without showing any reasons. The last example of this condition has been set in the 11th Turkish History Congress that gathered in 1990. For the first time, an “Armenian Section” had been programmed in the 11th Turkish history Congress and the foreign historians who have been “Armenian struggle Supporters” have been invited to the discussions in this section, but each of them using various excuses avoided participating in these scientific discussions.The list of the foreign scientists invited to the 11th Turkish History Congress, held in Ankara between September 5th — 9th 1990, in relation with the Armenian problem, is given hereunder:Prof. Dr. Heath LOWRY (participated)Garin ZEDLIAN (did not answer)Prof. Dr. Bernard LEWIS (could not participate)Prof. Dr. Justin McCARTHY (participated)Prof. Dr. Stanford SHAW (participated)Prof. Dr. Anthony BRYER (Did not answer)Dr. Andrew MANGO (participated)Prof. Dr. Salahi R. SONYEL (participated)Prof. Dr. M. MARMURA (did not answer)Prof. Dr. Allan CUNNINGHAM (did not answer)Prof. Dr. Robert ANCIAUX (participated)Prof. Dr. Aryeh SHMUELEVITZ (participated)Prof. Dr. Jak YAKAR (participated)Prof. Dr. Hans G. MAJER (could not participate)Prof. Dr. Wolf Dietrich HUTTEROTH (did not answer)Prof. Dr. Klaus KREISER (could not participate)Prof. Dr. Jean — Paul ROUX (did not answer)Prof. Dr. Paul DUMONT (participated)Prof. Dr. Robert MANTRAN (could not participate)Prof. Dr. Richard HOVANNISIAN (did not answer)Dr. Gerard LIBARDIAN (did not answer)Dr. Levon MARASHLIAN (participated)Prof. Dr. Vahakn DADRIAN (did not answer)Christopher WALKER (could not participate)Anahid Ter MIMASSIAN (could not participate)Tessa HOFFMAN (did not answer)REFERENCE:(1) Yildirim, Dr. Hüsamettin, Ermeni Iddialari ve Gercekler, Ankara, 2000

ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS AND UN TREATY ON GENOCIDE

2008-04-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 10. February 2007, 13:47:10
RELOCATION

The concept “genocide” is defined with the “UN Agreement on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Crime” dated 1948. In accordance with article 2 of the agreement;“

Genocide covers one of the following actions; with the intention of killing a national, ethnic, racial or religious group completely or partially: killing the members of the group, giving heavy damages to the physical or mental integrity of the members of the group, keeping the group in living conditions that will result in the loss complete partial physical existence of the group, taking precautions that will prevent births among the group, transfering of the children in the group to another group by force. In genocide, planned actions that have become a state policy are involved.”When the issue is assessed in terms of the genocide agreement, it is impossible not to mention some events in the history.

For committing an offence of inhumanity as genocide, that nation must have a tendency for such a crime in its history.

Tendency for crime is a characteristic for the societies just as it is for human beings.
When the Turkish history is examined, one can not find any trace of no genocide or assimilation.When we look at the geography, on which it has spread, we see that the Ottomans held a part of Europe together with the Balkans up to the borders of Vienna, all Northern Africa on Mediterranean coast, all of the Middle East and the Arab Peninsula under its management for many years.
This period is at least 200 — 400 years. Which nation in this geography can be said to be extinct?

In the period, during which religious rules were executed in Anatolia, beliefs such as the oldest Christianity sect Syriacism and Yezidi belief worshipping flame and peacock were able to survive lived and in 1800s, although violated of the religious laws, churches have been opened in Anatolia.

Even while one of the two brothers was Sokullu Mehmet Pasha, the Ottoman Grand Vizier, the other was assigned as Patriarch to the Makarje Serbian Church and has resurrected the Serbian nation. In the same period, when we look a other regions of the world, we see the genocides of the sects struggle period in Europe, the communities, whose languages were changed in the far east (Indians — Pestun), Africa, and Southern America whose language and religion have been completely changed.Nazis have killed millions of people during the 2nd World War.

Between 1939 — 1945, 5-6 million Jews, more than 3 million Soviet war prisoners, more than one million Polish and more than one million Yugoslavians, approximately 200.000 gypsies and 70.000 disabled were killed.

This is the genocide.In addition to these, although the United Nations has a preventive agreement, there have been many genocide events in the modern era.

For example, in accordance with the confessions of 2 retired French generals published in Le Monde, the French have killed minimum one million Algerians between 1954 — 1962, the Indonesian army has killed one million communists and their families between 1965 — 1966, the Red Kmers in Cambodia killed 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 — 1979, in 1994 500.000 Tutsies have been killed by the Hutus in Ruanda, and finally thousands of Muslims have been subject to the Serbian severity in Bosnia — Herzegovina after 1991.The genocide crime has been committed in these events in its real meaning.

Contrary to the Armenian pretensions, the implementation performed in Eastern Anatolia in 1915 is the migration from one place to another region within Ottoman land and it has no relation with the genocide. Turkish management is accustomed to living with the nations of different cultures and races in the regions it dominated. There is “justice” in the Turkish tradition, there is “keeping the cultures alive”; but there is no “massacre” or “genocide”. This matter is clearly indicated in the book of Justin McCarthy named “Death and Exile”. In this book, the story of the Balkans and the Caucasian people taking refuge in the Ottoman management to escape death are related.

One should the ones accusing the Ottoman management with genocide: Where did the Jews and the Muslims escape from Spain and Portugal in 1469 where did Tökeli Imre and his men escape from Hungary in 1680, where did Rakoczi Ferench and his men go in 1711, where did Layos Kosuth and a Hun group of 2000 people go in 1849, where did Prince Chartorski go with his 135000 soldiers in 1841 and 1856, where did the Russian commander Vrangel and even Trouchki escape in order to take refuge from death?The history gives the answer all these questions as the “Ottoman”.

Don’t the ones announcing the relocation implementation in 1915 as the so called “Armenian genocide” know that Poland and Germany origin Jews found shelter in Turkey since 1930s? While only 20 — 25 years had passed over the so — called Armenian genocide, why did the ones looking for a country to adopt chose Turkey as their rescuer?

The answers to these questions are hidden in the just, humane, tolerant, uniting character of the Turkish State tradition, which has always been respectful towards traditions and beliefs.Furthermore, the genocides and assimilations made in the Balkans 550 years after the Ottoman Empire Fatih, who gave the people living on the land he ruled, the chance of preserving their values alive and transferring them to the new generations, must be remembered.

The Balkan nations, whose languages, religions, churches, schools were taken under guarantee with this order, have torn the Bosnians, Albania — rooted Muslims, Macedonians and Bulgaria Turks out of their own land in the verge of the 21st century.

Today, the ones accusing Turkey of genocide have ignored the massacres that continued for moths and tapped their ears to the screams of the raped women of any age. Recently, not only the Balkan nations found shelter in Turkey; but also the Iraqis running away from Saddam Hüseyin, the Iraqi state president, who tried to commit genocide using the “mustard gas” he provided from the western chemical weapon producers, found shelter in Turkey.

The Turkish people has always shared their bread at any time in history in spite of their limited opportunities and have opened their arms to the oppressed nations.

The Turkish people, the Ottoman and the Republic of Turkey have a very clean register that can be an example for other nations and states.
http://my.opera.com/noarmeniangenocide/blog/index.dml/tag/RELOCATION

Armenian Issue – Presentation by Prof. Dr. Turkkaya Ataov,

2008-04-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

The following is a summary of the presentation for those interested in the subject matter.

The Armenian IssueAtaov started his presentation by stating that it is impossible to describe all aspects of the Armenian issue during a single lecture, today or tomorrow or even later, since it is such a complex problem that needs elaboration, corrections and new interpretations..

He started getting involved with this issue in 1979 when he realized that some of the things that he was reading were not accurate. He started writing about some of them in magazines and newspapers.

Pyramid of Skulls

One of the first things that attracted my attention, he said, was a picture published in several books, newspapers and magazines in France, Bulgaria, Iran and even in Latin America (including the Time magazine in the US) which claimed to be the skulls of Armenians killed by the Turks, referring to the “1915 - Turkish Barbarism”. The picture reminded me of a painting that I had seen at a gallery in Moscow, also included in a guide book that I had kept. I was able to locate the book among my 25,000 or so books and realized that it was the same painting published by the Armenians and their symphatizers over and over again.

I documented this in a monograph and made a wide distribution. The picture, presented as a photograph of heap of skulls, supposedly a remainder of ‘’Turkish barbarity’’ connected with the events of 1915, was actually a painting done in 1871 by a Russian master articst (V: Vereshchagin) who died in 1904.

Still hanging in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the oil canvas İS NAMED ‘’The Apotheasis of War’’ and is easily idebtifiable as such by any cultured Russian.

False Statement Attributed to Ataturk

An Armenian Hearst-style tabloid claimed that a Swiss journalist/artist had an interview with Ataturk on Aug 1, 1926, suggesting that Ataturk had admitted that the Ottoman Turks had committed genocide. An investigation on the tone and the style of the interview, the lack of any mention of the interview in Turkish newspapers, and investigations in the Swiss libraries showed that no such interview had taken place and that mo such person had even existed.

Book by AndonianAnother falsification is related to a number of so-called ''documents'' that an Armenian writer, Aram Andonian, either referred to or printed in a book that he attributed to the Ottoman leaders, principally to Talat Pasa.
Turkish scholars analyzed them and concluded that the book was based on forgeries. They were forgeries in terms of the kind of paper and cipher used, the dates, numbers and the signatures put on them. What he referred to as ''telegrams'' had been fabricated, which he claimed later that he had lost the originals. Ataov mentioned that he had extensively written about this as well.

Official Letters of Bogos Nubar, the head of the Armenian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference

Ataov showed a copy of an official letter that Bogos Nubar wrote to the French Foreign Ministry which states that between 600,000 - 700,000 Armenians had been subjected to relocation. Of these 250,000 went to the Caucasus, 80,000 stayed in Syria, 40,000 reached Iran, 20,000 more in Mosul and Baghdad, and hence a total of 390,000 reached their destination unmolested. The average remaining figure was 260,000. Bogos Nubar, the head of the Armenian Delegation at Versailles, does not say that this number was slaughtered by the Turks. Had he been sure that they were killed by the Turks, he would have certainly stated so, especially considering the fact that the Armenians were then on the side of the victors, and ‘’victors’’ justice was ruling everywhere. Ataov emphasized that the 260,000 were not killed by the Turks; many died of disease, or other causes, and that no one can really tell how many died. Between 1914-22, the Armenians participated in about s dozen wars, in which they killed and got killed.

Malta Trials

Ataov briefly commented on the Malta trials which ended with the release of 144 high Ottoman officials without any charges, including the Ottoman Grand Vizier down to the Columbia university graduate Ahmet Emin Yalman, the reporter who even gave lessons to the detainees to pass the time during the detention.

Quotation Attribute to Hitler

The notorious Hitler quotation was first published by The New York Times and The Times of London, with a note that this was reported by “our special correspondent”. While talking to his generals in 1939, the German dictator is supposed to have said: “I have given orders to destroy Polish-speaking race. After all, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians.” Ataov stated he did extensive research on this and that there was no historical basis for attributing such a statement to Hitler. Ataov also spoke about the efforts of some misguided Armenians who draw a parallel between the Jewish Holocaust and the so-called Armenian genocide, which he said is unfair to the Jews as well as the Turks. Ataov added that Hitler was no expert of Armenian-Turkish relations, that all what he wrote was nonsense and even if he had made such a statement it would carry no weight at all.

Van UprisingsOne of the principal reasons for the relocation was the Armenian uprisings in Van in 1915 where Turks were massacred. The Russians took over the city and handed the governance to the Armenians which resulted in deaths mostly on the Muslim/Turkish side.

Questions and Answers
Ataov suggested that he could take only a few questions since it was getting late. One of the questions was on the Hitler quotation, as to why it was still being exhibited at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, not too far from the White House. Turkkaya’s answer was: “Whoever has the power, will do whatever he wants.”
Then, Turkkaya stated that an Encyclopedia on Genocide published in Israel included Mustafa Kemal as one of those responsible for genocide. Ataov stated that he wrote about this falsification extensively.question was asked on the efforts of Ozdem Sanberk and the committee on the ''Reconciliation'' that was formed a couple of years ago, which has since been disbanned. Ataov responded by stating that he did not know about the efforts or the findings of the committee. Ataov also made a comment, referring to the recent conference in Ankara on Armenian Research, to which he was not even invited.

Edward Tasji, : ''You told us that no one cared or responded to the Armenian allegations. I have been doing just that for the past 40 years. Thanks to Ata Erim, my book will be published soon that will tell my story, based solely on my personal experience.

Ataov responded by stating that he knew Edward Tasji's efforts and thanked fo all he has been doing, but that he never said that here or elsewhere no one had responded to Armenian allegations..

Selected Books by Prof. Dr. Turkkaya Ataov
1. Osmanlı'nin Son Doneminde Ermeniler, August 2002, Turkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi Kultur, Sanat ve Yayin Kurulu Baskanligi.
The book, edited by Ataov, contains 14 articles written by experts on the Armenian issue, including Prof. Justin McCarty and Prof. Yusuf Halacoglu.

2. The Armenian Question, Conflict, Trauma, & Objectivity

3. An American Source (1895) on the Armenian Question

4. Hitler and the Armenian Question

5. A Statement Wrongly Attributed to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Documents on the Armenian Question: Forged and Authentic, 1985and many others.Ataov also stated that he had translated My Name is Aram into Turkish, one of many books written by William Saroyan, born in Fresno, California, to Armenian parents who migrated from Bitlis around 1910. Saroyan happens to be my favourite American author, who was a complex man as told by his son in a book The Last Rites.

Yuksel Oktay, PECivil EngineerNew JerseyNote: Prof. Turkkaya Ataov had made a similar presentation on the Armenian Issue at the Turkish Center back in 1988.
http://www.turkla.com/yazar.php?mid=1027&yid=39

Yusuf Hallacoglu :Armenian massacre stories began with 300.000s and came to 3.000.000s have no basis.

2008-04-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

RELOCATION
Many things have been said and written about relocation since the date of its application. The Armenians have managed to deceive the world public opinion for a long period by hiding behind the false documents.

The Armenian massacre stories, which began with 300.000s and came to 3.000.000s have no basis.

Likewise during the invasion of Istanbul, both the English and the French have sufficiently investigated the Ottoman archive and since they have not been able to submit any documents in relation with the Armenian genocide, they must not have found any such document.On the other hand, they should have photographs in their archives taken by the journalists who came to Anatolia at that time to observe the relocation implementation. If a genocide had been committed with the order of the state, these photographs would have been presented to the world public opinion a long time ago.

Furthermore, if the party claiming the reality of a genocide had concrete documents, would the for establishing a “commission of jurists” be left without a response? Why did not this official suggestion of the Ottoman State left unanswered? Was the reason the fear that the roles of some western countries would become apparent in the organization and agitation of the Armenian bands or the fear that sources, from which the Armenians obtained their guns to kill thousands of innocent civil people, be disclosed?

When the word genocide is mentioned the Nazi mass murder that resulted in the loss of millions of Jews and other ethnical groups, comes to mind. When the word genocide is heard, the murder at least a million Algerians by the French between 1954 — 1962 is remembered. When the word genocide is heard, the murdering of 1 million communists and their families by the Indonesian army between 1965 — 1966 is remembered. When the word genocide is mentioned, the massacre of almost 2 millions of Cambodians by the Red Kmers in Cambodia between 1975-1979 is remembered. When the word genocide is mentioned, the murdering of 500.000 Tutsies by the Hutus in Ruanda in 1994 is comes to mind. And finally when the word genocide is heard, the severe massacre of thousands of Muslims in Bosnia — Herzegovina and Kosova after 1991 by the Serbians is remembered.

The genocide crime has been committed during these events in its real meaning. If the Ottoman State had any intention of subjecting the Armenians to “genocide”, wouldn’t it commit it where the Armenians lived? What was the need for such expense made during the relocation and so many commercial and military precautions that needed to be taken?The purpose of the relocation which the world’s most successful resettlement program has never been eliminating Armenians but was born out of a compulsory need of providing state security.

REFERENCE: Hallacoglu, Prof.Dr. Yusuf, Facts Relating to the Armenian Displacement (1915); TTK Publication, Ankara 2001.

2008-04-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

Next 14 views of Turks for the following programme:
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2008/s2207929.htm

Name Halit Sindi
Homepage Visit Time 13:42:38 23 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
Dear ABC Programmer,
I am a loyal viewer of many ABC programs including Foreign Correspondent. However, I would like to express my profound anger and disappointment over one of the stories you presented in the “Foreign Correspondent” program that broadcasted on 22 April 2008 at
9:30pm.

I truly found this program rather biased, distorted, and contained factual errors. I also found this program was totally one-sided and clearly favouring the Armenian allegations.

You have presented the story as if you were telling the facts on the issue. But so-called Armenian genocide is quite controversial issue, which many historians believe otherwise. Armenian accusations are usually based on stories that has been told by either family members or falsely fabricated by the Armenian Diaspora. They always failed to back up their claims with evidence or any historical fact. I strongly suggest you to read independent experts on the field such as Justin McCarthy, Heath Lowry, and Stanford Shaw before you make such hostile remarks on the free-to-air network.It is true that thousands of Armenians have lost their life due to starvation, disease and local rebel attacks during WWI.

However, according to many international sources including Australian Foreign Ministry website, at the time, thousands of Turks, also, lost their lives due to same reasons as Armenians.

But I guess, on the eyes of the Western world, Turkish losses are less valuable than Armenians. I cannot go without mentioning the Armenian terrorism, which cost the lives of 42 Turkish diplomats. Armenian terrorist organizations such as Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) started to operate in mid 1970's and they carried out approximately 200 attacks in 38 cities of 21 countries.
One of these attacks took place in Australia on 17 December 1980 when Turkey's Consul General of Sydney Mr.Sarik Ariyak and his security guard Mr.Engin Sever were murdered.

The Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) was responsible for this terrorist act. This vicious and cowardly attack considered being as one of the most significant terrorist events in the history of Australia by the ASIO.My message to you is; please be fair and stop your biased coverage on Turkish history.http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl

2008-04-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

Name JoeHomepage Visit Time 22:39:23 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
I can ask Eric Campbell the same question as he asked during his program regarding the so called Armenian genocide to the Turkish MP, how can he be so sure this genocide had happened ? He was extremely bias in the way he presented both sides of the argument.
He made himself judge and jury and convicted a nation with a proud history with so called genocide. Eric Campbell tried to link the killing of the Armenian journalist in Turkey with the treatment of the Armenian minority in Turkey in the past. What about linking the killing of many Turkish Ambassadors all around the world by the Armenian terrorist group, ASALA.

Obviously that would not go well with Eric's superiors who are influenced by the powerful Armenian lobby. I wonder why he chose to make a such a program just before ANZAC day.

Name
Hilmi Deveci
Homepage
Visit Time 22:51:53 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
My previous comment should have read, Why is ABC bias towards Turkey ?When will ABC ever show the Turkish,or even better, other historian's view from around the world when it comes to "Turkish Genocide" by the Armenians ?If you are ever interested in real facts, I can provide a DVD produced by an American historian.
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

Name Julia Gul Arslan ( Australia Gallipoli Friendship SocietyHomepage Visit Time 22:29:57 22 Apr, 2008 ESTRemarks

Dear Eric and Foreign Correspond producerFor the segment due to be shown on 22 April.

…This program will let down many Turkish-Australians…by reading of your program’s synopsis, this film again one of those ones that turning the history upside down with full of biased emerging statements in order convey to inform with false and misleading report given to the Australian people sadly on the week of ‘the Friendship’ between Australia and Turkiye.

Turkish Australians who have being living in Australia harmoniously by respecting multicultural Australia and Australian values for more than 40 years now. However, such this program supports to give immerse reverse impact.
Your report and ABC TV should already know that such a divisive program doesn’t and won’t help Australia where supposed be a fair go country for everyone, every nationality unless an opportunity should have been provided for every nation to be able express their story and their historical realities.

Otherwise, such one sided and bias program encourages and sustains animosity nothing else!
Is that what you want? Turks believe the notion of ' animosity breeds animosity; it is a vicious circle ‘ therefore Turks support the idea of ‘ Peace and Harmony in Australia, Peace and Harmony in the Universe’.

Turks never supports hatred for any nation consequently Turkish people in Australia and Turkey never hate Australians for invasion of the Gallipoli War. They rather focus on the lessons from history and try to grow friendship and peace in Australia out of the Gallipoli War because they know that their heritage values require supporting peace, not war!.They also believe that there are hardly any wars, which the past conflicted parties jointly commemorate.
Gallipoli serves as a message of ' PEACE ' to the whole world. Lets celebrate friendships and peaceful acts not to support sick minds please!

Otherwise you and your like minded people have to chose imperialistic ideas to grow in Australia or not
Lest we forget the price of animosity!
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T23:06:00.001-07:00

Visit Time 15:44:55 17 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks Eric,

This so called genocide has not been recognised by Turkey or the world. Turkey has opened its archives for the Armenians but to date all the Armenians are doing is lobbying. Please do not tell one sided stories. I saw the preview of your story and very dissapointed. When are you going to do your investigation to come up with both side of the coin.

Visit Time 22:10:56 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
I felt that the program shown on 22.04.08 about the genocide was onesided and only shown to show the slaughter to the armenians which was rediculous and 1 sided i strongly believe that a turkish muslim person to say to a priest that we will hang you and drink your blood! I am outraged and disgusted and it just goes to show how false all these alagation are.

Name M & E Gumec
Homepage Visit Time 22:25:17 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks

Just watched your program about Turkey and Armenia. We are really disappointed with your biased coverage of this highly sensitive matter. It is such an important subject for both nations and instead of bringing the information from the historians, you gave coverage to an extreme nationalist - very one sided. It looked like you planned what you wanted to cover before starting your research.

We were in Turkey recently and we had the privilage to discuss this subject with historians lecturing at the unis and also providing info to the foreign historians. Their knowledge could provide more insight to such a sensitive topic. We found your program very irresponsible...
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

Name Mehmet aka johny Turk
Homepage
Visit Time 22:16:29 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks

I suggest you read this website and do your journalism proffesionally before accusing Turks of false lies.Where was the balnaced reporting where was the interview with the Turkish victims from the armenian gangs tashnaks etc etc?http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/we are ready to sit down with the armeninas when ever they are to sort this historical lie out.BUT we cannot find partners such is the lies and hate fed.Here this man is brave and he is not even Turkish have a good read to get a TRUTH and BALANCEhttp://www.tallarmeniantale.com/Thank god for the internet otherwise the people would believe anything they see on
TVhttp://www.tallarmeniantale.com/

Name
Proud Australian Turk

Homepage Visit Time 21:51:51 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks

I thought it may help for everyone to check this internet site aswell ..http://www.armenian--genocide.com/Unfortunately, the issue has never reached a properly constituted court. If the Armenians were convinced of their own case, they would have taken it to one. Instead, they lobby bewildered or bored parliamentary assemblies to "recognize the genocide."Congress should not take a position, one way or the other, on this affair. Let historians decide.

The Turkish government has been saying this for years. It is the Armenians who refuse to take part in a joint historical review, even when organized by impeccably neutral academics.
This review is the logical and most sensible path forward.

Passage of the resolution by the full House of Representatives would constitute an act of legislative vengeance and would shame well-meaning scholars who want to explore this history from any vantage point other than the one foisted upon the world by ultranationalist Armenians.
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

Name
Ali Turk
Homepage

Visit Time
23:56:19 27 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
Congragulation ABC another biased program without giving other facts..

Lets talk about some facts.1915 Turkish empire is in the war. Its facing it's own life and death struggle.. British, French and Anzacs army attacts to Gallipoli; Russia attacs to the east Turkey and Arabs with British forces attacks from south..

Thats not an ordinary war, but fight to life or death of all the Turkish people.Armenins living in Turkey (over million) think that Turkey will collapse within days if not in weeks.. Who would think any other way against such mighty forces. Gallipoli is about to fall to British army and great allied navy will be soon in Istanbul.. If they cannot , Russian will finish off anyway.

So they thought that it's their best opportunity to grab whatever they can from this dying man..they started to kill and deport all Turkish origin people (including my grand mum) in the hope of carving big Armenia. But as we all know not always the things goes in our way.

Turks stopped allied forces in Gallipoli and Russian couldnt have much luck on the eastern side of Turkey neither. So suddenly these Armenian thugs had to face Turkish might alone..Nobody denies that many Armenian are died but that was legitamete war where Turks are figthing to survive..number of dead doesnt prove genocide.

Millions of Japanese died in WWII but that doesnt show that Americans did genocide to Japons but it was war and one had to lose and the other wins and unfortunately millions dies. That was same with these armenians.. They did initiated their own war in the hope of big gains and lost more than they had at the end..
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Name
This weeks report on Armenian claimed "genocide"
Homepage

Visit Time
18:47:01 29 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
I thought foreign correspondent was one of the independent news shows on Australian Television. If you want to debate Turkey's independence on speech issue, you could have done so easily.
But to attach that to the so called genocide of Armenians was a cheap shot. I am no international law expert but i know that lot of European countries have laws which forbid insulting the nation and the state(Critism is another thing).
For example France in just recent years proposed a law, to incriminate who denies there was a genocide of Armenians. Now, isn't this a double standard? This capital system seems like big countries have the right to say anything and make people believe in their own right view of the stories. What about the genocide of the native Americans by British,Spanish empires?

What about the genocide and assimilation of Pacific Islanders islanders by the British empire? What about the state of Africa and Middle East where people are still suffering in result of the WWI and WWII?

The program seemed like a propaganda from the Armenian diaspora, which spends millions of dollars every year, trying to convince people that this has happened. If you are so concerned about this debate happening in Turkey( where every year conferences are made to debate the issue in which foreign researchers,historians and journalists gather to discuss), why didn't you guys ask if this was debated in Armenia?

The evidences in the Armenian genocide museum is mostly false and made up after the WWII to make sure Armenian's are compensated for this deportation. Behind this allegations is one of the biggest European countries like France, who killed thousands of women and children during the WWI campaign in the Ottoman empire. You, as Australians, should have known better how much the Republic of Turkey respects other nations even though they have come to invade and colonize the land of Turks.

It was a shame this was never mentioned in the program. I was very disappointed in Eric Campbell who i thought was a top class journalist.
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

Name Hazza
Visit Time 22:23:00 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
In regards to you story Armenia/Turkey - Ghosts of the Past,

it is a shame that only 1 side has been betrayed, especially considering the factual inconsistencies such as:-Turkey closing the borders when Armenia acheived independence.

This is incorrect as the border was closed due to the Armenian annexation via millitary force of Azerbaijan territory-Armenia having a state that extended to included Mount Ararat. This is incorrect as no state existed and all territories were under Ottoman command.

-The government of Turkey has constantly asked for an independent enquiry into the events that occurred, yet the Armenian government has continued to drag its heels on the issue.Although at least you mentioned that the events were due to the Armenian's living in the eastern Anatolians uprising, you fail to understand that the word genocide is a systematic approach which does not apply in this situation, as the Armenians living for centuries I might add in the other parts of the Ottoman Empire were not affected.

Although I am sure that there will be Armenians and other ethnic minorities who will say they suffered for centuries under Ottoman rule despite evidence that points to the contray.Still you cant help those with sour grapes trying to gain what they can, even if that is by going to other parliments around the world to except there claims, circumventing historians.

Good luck to the Armenians, maybe they will get the eastern part of Turkey....good luck also to the Kurds.....maybe they will get the southern part of Turkey....good luck to the Greeks....maybe they will get the western part of Turkey...I am sure that will happen when Australia gives its land back to the Aboriginals, America to the Native Indians, New Zealanders to the Kiwis...but keep on the great reporting Foreign Correspondent....
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

22:24:44 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Remarks
Name To Erric and Mark
Visit Time 22:24:44 22 Apr, 2008 EST
Care to mention Armenian terrorism?
Their endless assaults on Turkish diplomats?
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/04/605-armenian-terrorism-ethnic-terror.htmlCare to mention Armenia's still ongoing invasion of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan? Azeri genocide?http://www.azerigenocide.org/hist/hist02.htm

You mentioned in your program that Armenians sided with Russians during WWI towards their independence. Were the Ottomans to embrace them and cry with tears of joy? At a time when the empire faced threats from every side, it would not tolerate attacks from its own citizens or any revolts.I find your effort sincere, but I would like to see you walk in the same shoes with the military leaders of that time.

Middle East is not a peace heaven, and it takes lives to guard your own land and country.Armenia has been invited to participate in a council of historians several times now, and it has refused every offer. Wondered why? Put the prejudice and the bias aside, Armenian people were killed, but did you see any hint towards a plan that was aimed to kill all Armenians? As was Hitler towards Jews? Or did you see an army/country trying to protect itself from backstabbing?Did your apologies soothe and save the Aborigininal people?

Did the Americans lend a helping hand to the Indians? (Care to look for massacres there as well?) I like brave journalists, but a journalist has the responsibility to tell the story fully.One last remark, I laughed at your comment saying Turks were afraid of Armenians capturing eastern provinces and Ararat.
Get real
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/guestlst/guestbook.pl?foreign

2008-04-29T18:44:00.001-07:00

"THE TRIALS OF THE ARMENIANS Few Peoples have known as many changes of fortune as the Armenians. Situated in eastern Anatolia and extending eastwards into what is now the U.S.S.R., Armenia was in ancient times a buffer kingdom between rival empires. Armenia was frequently invaded-by Assyrians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks and Romans.

Withal, the Armenians retained their identity. In the 11th century, after still more invasions of their homeland, a number of Armenians established a new kingdom on the southern coast of Anatolia. This kingdom in its turn was destroyed in the 14th century by invaders from Egypt.
Under the Ottoman Empire, Armenian merchants and financiers thrived.

As the borders of the empire contracted in the 19th century, however, struggles broke out between Turks and Armenians for the possession of Anatolian lands. Many Armenians died; others fled abroad."

'Excerption from a book called 'Life World Library' by Desmond Stewart and The Editors of LIFE which is published in 1965. Desmond Stewart is a British writer and graduated at Oxford in 1948....

2008-04-29T18:43:00.000-07:00

"The presence in the northeast of the country of a thriving cultured and relatively wealthy community of Armenians was a difficulty to Turks long before the First World War.
"It became a political and strategic threat when the war broke out because of the place of Armenians in the Russian Empire. However, most Armenians, two million of them living in the Turkish Empire, were no threat whatsoever.

"In many ways, it shows that the old idea that war is politics by other means is outdated in the 20th century. War is hatred by other means. And in this case, hatred means extermination. The First World War was the biggest war ever to date. The Second World War was bigger still. It's not accident on my mind that both of them were marked by genocide. This is the logic of the brutalization of total war." Jay Winter-historian"

…Saying that the massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was the same as what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany is a downright falsehood. What happened to the Armenians was the result of a massive Armenian armed rebellion against the Turks, which began even before war broke out, and continued on a larger scale. Great numbers of Armenians, including members of the armed forces, deserted, crossed the frontier and joined the Russian forces invading Turkey. Armenian rebels actually seized the city of Van and held it for a while intending to hand it over to the invaders.
There was guerilla warfare all over Anatolia. There is clear evidence of a decision by the Turkish Government, to deport the Armenian population from the sensitive areas. Which meant naturally the whole of Anatolia. Not including the Arab provinces which were then still part of the Ottoman Empire. There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of attempt to prevent it…"
Bernard Lewis, on the American TV C-SPAN 2, 25 March, 2002

2008-04-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

"… Armenians again flooded the czarist armies, and the czar returned to St. Petersburg confident that the day finally had come for him to reach Istanbul. Hostilities were opened by Russians, who pushed across the border on November 1, 1914, though the Ottomans stopped them and pushed them back a few days later. A subsequent Russian counter offensive in January caused the Ottoman army to scatter.and the way was prepared for a new Russian push into eastern Anatolia, to be accompanied by an open Armenian revolt against the sultan...

Armenian leaders in Russia now openly declared their support of the enemy and there seemed no other alternative. It would be impossible to determine which of the Armenians would remain loyal and which would follow the appeals of their leaders. As soon as the spring came, then, in mid-May 1915 orders were issued to evacuate the entire Armenian population from the provinces of Van, Bitlis, and Erzurum, to get them away from all areas where they might undermine the Ottoman campaigns against Russia or against the British in Egypt, with arrangements made to settle them in towns and camps in the Mosul area of Northern Iraq.

In addition, Armenians residing in the countryside (but not in the cities) of the Cilician districts as well as those of north Syria were to be sent to central Syria for the same reason. Specific instructions were issued for the army to protect the Armenians against nomadic attacks and to provide them with sufficient food and other supplies to meet their needs during the march and after they were settled. Warnings were sent to the Ottoman military commanders to make certain that neither the Kurds nor any other Muslims used the situation to gain vengeance for the long years of Armenian terrorism. The Armenians were to be protected and cared for until they returned to their homes after the war…"

Stanford Shaw, Prof. Of History at UCLA, History Of The Ottoman Empire And modern Turkey, Cambridge University Press, 1977, Vol. II, p 315.

2008-04-29T18:26:00.002-07:00

“… Shortly after the news had spread to Europe of the attack on the Ottoman Bank and the subsequent massacre of Armenians, a number of artists of illustrated newspapers arrived in Constantinople, commissioned to supply the demand for atrocities of the Million-headed-Tyrant. Among these was the late Mr. Melton Prior, the renowned war correspondent. He was a man of strenuous and determined temperament, one not accustomed to be the sport of circumstances but to rise superior to them.
Whether he was called upon to take part in a forced march or to face a mad Mullah, he invariable held his own and came off victorious. But in this particular case, as he confided to me, he was in an awkward predicament.
The public at home had heard of nameless atrocities and was anxious to receive pictorial representations of these.

The difficulty was how to supply them with what they wanted, as the dead Armenians had been buried and no women or children had suffered hurt and no Armenian church had been desecrated. As an old admirer of the Turks and as an honest man, he declined to invent what he had not witnessed. But others were not equally scrupulous. I subsequently saw an Italian illustrated newspaper containing harrowing pictures of women and children being massacred in a church…”
p 29
… “… ‘Do you believe that any massacres would have taken place if no Armenian revolutionaries had come into the country and incited the Armenian population to rebellion?’ I asked Mr. Graves (The British Consul). ‘Certainly not’ he replied. ‘I do not believe that a single Armenian would have been killed’ …” p 70
Sydney Whitman, Turkish Memories, London 1914

2008-04-29T18:26:00.001-07:00

“…The Editor is, of course, aware that these documents which he only possesses in a defective form cannot be presented as evidence in the strict sense by himself, and can plausibly be repudiated by the parties whose crimes they describe.”
Bryce, Viscount (Arnold J, Toynbee, editor) The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16, Miscellaneous No. 31(1916), British Secret War Propaganda Bureau Publication (1916) (run by Charles Masterman), p 41

2008-04-29T18:25:00.002-07:00

“…Now I can readily understand and make allowance for the public's errors and misconceptions, for it has had, after all, no means of knowing that it has been systematically deceived, but I can find no excuse for those newspapers which, clinging to a policy of vilifying the Turk, failed to rectify the anti-Turkish charges printed in their columns even when it had been proved to the satisfaction of most fair-minded persons that they were unjustified…A case in point was the burning of Smyrna in September, 1922.
There was scarcely a newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version, yet, after it had been attested by American, English, and French eye-witnesses, and by a French commission of inquiry, that the city had been deliberately fired by the Greeks and Armenians in order to prevent it falling into Turkish hands, how many newspapers had the courage to admit that they had done the Turks a grave injustice?…"
E. Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, The Century Co., New York & London (1923), p 32-33

2008-04-29T18:25:00.001-07:00

“… The Turkish Armenian does not know what a revolution is. He fears a revolution like death. But if there is something he is more afraid of, it is the revolutionary Armenian, the unreasoning revolutionary Armenians without a conscience who dragged him from misery to misery for several years with the thought of doing a good deed for him.

The Turkish Armenian have to confess that this enemy of their own kind has been everywhere and has done its work everywhere. It also had many followers in Russia, England and Turkey. Because it is known as a social truth that divisive movements and propaganda among groups in a society influence the masses very deeply. When these witless wretches came up with the idea of establishing a large state with the Armenians in Caucasia and Turkey, the God-fearing Armenians with good conscience who were aware of where the best interests of the nation lay, were overcome with sadness: 'An independent state, which will also include within its borders some of the Turkish provinces, is that it? This would be the destruction of Armenians' they said.

This was the truth. It was impossible for any Armenian with a little bit of discernment not to see it. Because these people were thinking that they could change the bed of a large river with eight or ten pieces of stone. This large river had opened its real bed by flowing for centuries on a strong surface. To change this direction was to tear Armenian nterests from the tranquil flow of the river, to push them to draught-ridden lands and to strangle them there for ever.

Those feeble minded persons failed to see that the foreigners who supported their revolution and evil deeds and championed their causes in their newspapers did not undertake such action for the love of Armenians. The aim, and the sole aim of these so-called protective powers was to cause the shedding of blood in regions which they earmarked for their hegemony and to take over these regions with the pretext of cleaning the blood. History is still recording what imperialism is capable of doing in places it sets its eyes on. But it was impossible to make the public-spirited revolutionaries comprehend this.
The anarchists and propagandists among them who could be useful neither to themselves nor to their communities in any other way were receiving salaries.

They were also receiving what they believed there was Turkish oppression, and they also made their compatriots believe in their lies. The last quarter of a century of Turkey's history is filled with some Armenian events. Although these events were supposedly aimed at some goals harmful to Turkey, in fact they were only the oppression of Armenians by Armenians.

If the causes and reasons for each event are analyzed one by one and if the events are analyzed meticulously, the only conclusion that will be arrived at is the one we have stated in the previous sentence; the oppression of Armenians by Armenians…”
Migirdic Agop, The Turkish Armenians, Istanbul 1922

2008-04-29T18:24:00.007-07:00

“… Quoting from the American High Commissioner Admiral Bristol's report: "The United States should raise its voice against the plans of the Allies and the American people should be told the facts. They (the Turks) were still human and still had rights and the other side of the coin was obscured by the flood of Greek and Armenian propaganda painting the Turks as completely inhuman and undeserving of any consideration, while suppressing all the facts in favor of the Turks…."
Evans, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, 1914-1924, Baltimore 1965, p 272

2008-04-29T18:24:00.005-07:00

”… By the end of October, the late Miss Annie T. Allen and Miss Florence Billings, the Near East Relief's representatives in Ankara (Angora), compiled a report on the state of the Turkish villages which the Greeks had burned during their retreat and forwarded it to the Near East Relief's headquarters in Constantinople. But the Near East Relief has never published that report, just as Mr. Lloyd George never published the Bristol report on Greek misdeeds at Izmir (Smyrna)…”
Clair Price, The Rebirth of Turkey, New York 1923, p 189

2008-04-29T18:24:00.003-07:00

“… I am surprised that London should possess information which no one here is aware of and is unable to document. As a result, it has been impossible until now to determine exactly that Armenians have been massacred in any area. There is much talk about it but no one was able to give me certain and exact information. In particular the Armenian losses in Marash appear to be absolutely false. Apparently, the Armenians took part in the struggle of our troops in this city and had casualties like all the fighters. A serious study of the figures shows that these Armenian casualties do not exceed 1000…”
Prime Minister Millerand, Archives des Affaires Etrangeres de France,Vol 9, Folio 3

2008-04-29T18:24:00.001-07:00

“… In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well-known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies…”
2.5 Lamsa, George M., The Secret of the Near East, Philadelphia, 1923, p 133

2008-04-29T18:23:00.003-07:00

“… A circular was issued by the War Office inviting reports on war incidents from officers with regard to the enemy and stating that strict accuracy was not essential so long as there was inherent probability (p 20). Atrocity lies were the most popular of all, especially in this country and America; no war can be without them. Slander of the enemy is esteemed a patriotic duty…” p 22
… “… It is impossible to describe all the types of atrocity stories. They were repeated for days in brochures, posters, letters and speeches. Renowned persons, who otherwise would be hesitant to condemn even their mortal enemies for lack of evidence, did not hesitate to accuse an entire nation of having committed every imaginable savagery and inhuman action..”
p 129.
Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, New York, 1928

2008-04-29T18:23:00.001-07:00

“… Atrocity stories have been vastly overdone; some of the more recent massacres have been wholly nonexistent. One of the local (Constantinople) members of the press and of a relief organization told some friends openly that he could only send anti-Turkish dispatches to America because that is what gets the money…”
E. Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia, New York, 1925

2008-04-29T18:22:00.001-07:00

“… The Armenian, for all his ineffaceable nationalism, his passion for plotting and his fanatical intolerance, would be a negligible thorn in the Ottoman side did he stand alone.

The Porte knows very well that while Armenian Christians are Gregorian, Catholic and Protestant, each sect bitterly intolerant of the others and moreover while commerce and usury are all in Armenian hands, it can divide and rule secure; but behind the Armenian secret societies (and there are few Armenians who have not committed technical treason by becoming members of such societies at some point of their lives) it sees the Kurd, and behind the Kurd the Russian; or looking west, it espies through the ceaseless sporadic propaganda of the agitators Exeter Hall and Armenian Committees.

The Turk begins to repress because we sympathize and we sympathize because he represses and so the vicious circle revolves. Does he habitually, however, do more than repress? Does he, as administrator oppress? So far we have heard one version only, one part to this suit, with its stories of outrage and echoing through them a long cry for national independence. The mouth of the accused has been shut hitherto by fatalism, by custom, by the gulf of misunderstanding which is fixed between the Christian and the Moslem.

In my own experience of western Armenia, extending more or less over four years up to 1894, I have seen no signs of a Reign of Terror. Life in Christian villages has not shown itself outwardly to me as being very different from life in the villages of Islam, nor the trade and property of Armenians in towns to be less secure than those of Moslems. There was tension, there was friction, there was a condition of mutual suspicion as to which Armenians have said to me again and again "If only the patriots would leave us to trade and to till!".

The Turk rules by right of five hundred years' possession, and before his day the Byzantine, the Persian, the Parthian, the Roman preceded each other as over-lords of Greater Armenia back to the misty days of the first Tigranes.

The Turk claims certain rights in this matter - the right to safeguard his own existence, the right to smoke out such hornets' nests as Zeitun, which has annihilated for centuries past the trade of Eastern Taurus, the right to remain dominant by all means not outrageous …”
2.2 David G. Hogarth, A Wandering Scholar in the Levant, New York, 1896, p 147

2008-04-29T18:21:00.001-07:00

“…We have no hesitation in repeating that these stories of wholesale massacre have been circulated with the distinct objective of influencing, detrimentally to Turkey, the future policy of the British Government when the time of settlement shall arrive. No apology, therefore, is needed for honestly endeavouring to show how a nation with whom we were closely allied for many years and which possesses the same faith as millions of our fellow-subjects, has been condemned for perpetrating horrible excesses against humanity on 'evidence' which, when absolutely false, is grossly and shamefully exaggerated…”
C.F. Dixon-Johnson, The Armenians, Blackburn 1916, p 61

2008-04-29T17:37:00.003-07:00

"...When Turkey had not yet entered the war...Armenian volunteer groups began to be organized with great zeal and pomp in Trans Caucasia. In spite of the decision taken a few weeks before at the General Committee in Erzurum, the Dashnagtzoutune actively helped the organization of the aforementioned groups, and especially arming them, against Turkey. In the Fall of 1914, Armenian volunteer groups were formed and fought against the Turks..."

Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic, The Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, 1923.
(The Armenian Revolutionary Federation Has Nothing to Do Any More, New York, Armenian Information Service, 1955, p. 5.)

"Practically all of the (volunteers were) Turkish Armenians," The New York Times reported, in 1915.

Compiled by Bulent TekSource Australia Turkish Forum (ATFP - http://www.network54.com/Forum/407087)

2008-04-29T17:37:00.001-07:00

"...In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage..."
Henry Morganthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York (1918), page 301

2008-04-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

"... It's better that I be a dog or a cat, than a Turkish barbarian..."

Edna Petrosyan, a SIX YEAR OLD Californian girl who recites hateful poems on the insistence of her mother. It is easy to see how this cycle of hate-perpetuation feeds the "Armenian Genocide" obsession for most Armenians. The Los Angeles Times, February 1, 1990

2008-04-29T17:35:00.006-07:00

"It is in our blood to hate the Turks. However, we hate Bulgarians and Greeks also. The Jews like Turks, but they hate Arabs. The Arabs, in their turn, are not in favour with the Turks. And the level of hatred is rising."
Narek Mesropian, described as Armenia's poet laureate, in Golos Armenii, a Russian-language newspaper in Armenia, in an August 5, 1997 article reflecting the tension between the Armenian and Jewish communities. Interestingly, the Turks are not accused of hating anybody.

2008-04-29T17:35:00.005-07:00

"Since all the able Moslem men were in the army, it was easy for the Armenians to begin a horrible slaughter of the defenseless Moslem inhabitants in the area. They ... simply cleaned out the Moslem inhabitants in those areas. They performed gruesome deeds, of which I, as an eye witness honestly say that they were much worse than what Turks have been accused of as an Armenian atrocity." General Bronsart von Schellendorf , "
A Witness for Talat Pasha," Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, July 24, 1921

2008-04-29T17:35:00.003-07:00

"In Soviet Armenia today there no longer exists a single Turkish soul."
Sahak Melkonian, Preserving the Armenian Purity, 1920

2008-04-29T17:35:00.001-07:00

"The Armenians did exterminate the entire Muslim population of Russian Armenia as Muslims were considered inferior to the Armenians by the prominent leaders of the Dashnaks."

Mikael Kaprilian, Armenian revolutionary leader, in Yerevan, 1919.

2008-04-29T17:34:00.001-07:00

"Many massacres were committed by the Armenians until our army arrived in Erzurum... (after General Odesilitze left) 2,127 Muslim bodies were buried in Erzurum's center. These are entirely men. There are ax, bayonet and bullet wounds on the dead bodies. Lungs of the bodies were removed and sharp stakes were struck in the eyes. There are other bodies around the city."

Official telegram of the Third Royal Army Command, addressed to the Supreme Command, March 19, 1918; ATASE Archive of General Staff, Archive No: 4-36-71. D. 231. G.2. K. 2820. Dos.A-69, Fih.3.

2008-04-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

"This three-day massacre by Armenians is recorded in history as the 'March Events' and thousands of Muslims, old people, women and children lost their lives."

F. Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (New York, 1951), p. 69. (This excerpt refers not to Armenian atrocities against Ottoman Turks, but to "Tartar" (derogatory for "Tatar") Turks, when Armenia attacked Azerbaijan in 1918. Regarding this period of March 30 to April 1 1918, Vladimir Lenin said that commissar S. Shaumyan, the chief architect of the massacres throughout Azerbaijan, "turned Baku into an Armenian operated henhouse [slaughterhouse]."
According to Justin McCarthy's "Death and Exile, Between 8,000 and 12,000 Muslims were killed in Baku alone.…"
As the Armenians found support among the Reds (who regarded the Tartars as a counter-revolutionary elements) the fighting soon became a massacre of the Tartar population"
W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields", Cambridge University Press, 1953, p. 481

2008-04-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

"I exterminated the Turkish population in Bashar-Gechar without making any exceptions. One sometimes feels the bullets shouldn't be wasted. So, the most effective way against these dogs is to collect the people who have survived the clashes and dump them in deep holes and crush them under heavy rocks pressed from above, not to let them inhabit this world any longer.
So I did accordingly. I collected all the women, men and children and extinguished their lives in the deep holes I dumped them into, crushing them with rocks."

"We closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the Tartars (Turks), and then proceeded in the work of extermination. Our troops surrounded village after village. Little resistance was offered. Our artillery knocked the huts into heaps of stones and dust, and when the villages became untenable and the inhabitants fled from them into the fields, bullets and bayonets completed the work."

Ohanus Appressian, describing incidents in 1919; Memoirs of an Armenian officer, Men are Like That, 1926.

2008-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

"I killed Muslims by every means possible. Yet it is sometimes a pity to waste bullets for this. The best way is to gather all of these dogs and throw them into wells and then fill the wells with big and heavy stones. as I did. I gathered all of the women, men and children, threw big stones down on top of them. They must never live on this earth." A. Lalayan, Revolutsionniy Vostok (Revolutionary East) No: 2-3, Moscow, 1936. (Highly deceptive Armenian activists on the Internet are spreading rumors there is no Lalayan.

NOTE: The above quote has been confirmed. Lalaian was an Armenian Soviet historian and the Dashnag report above was first published in issue 2-3 of the magazine, Revolyutsionniy Vostok and then in issue 2 of Istoricheskie Zapisky, the organ of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History, The above quote is from a proud Dashnag officer, in the report he wrote from the Beyazit-Vaaram region in 1920, Updated translation:

If there was Genocide, who was actually committed it?

2008-04-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Some quotes may be gruesome depicting the real motives of the Armenians that started in late 1800's and all these facts are documented with source references. And here we are looking for a Turkish Organisation (excluding individuals readiness to fight are unquestionable) that has the apt and honor to fight these lies and fabrications,poignant but true.

" All Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation"
Hamparsum Boyaciyan, nicknamed "Murad," a former Ottoman parliamentarian who led Armenian guerilla forces, ravaging Turkish villages behind the lines, 1914. "
Cited from Mikael Varandean, "History of the Dashnaktsutiun." (Alternately known as "History of the A.R.Federation" ["H. H. Dashnaktsutyan Patmutiwn," Paris,1932 and Cairo,1950]. The author [1874-1934] has other works, including "L'Arménie et la Question Arménienne," noted in the library as "Delegation propaganda authenticated by the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919"]

Compiled by Bulent Tek
Source Australia Turkish Forum (ATFP - http://www.network54.com/Forum/407087)